How to use devices
This is an overview of device handling in Qubes OS. For specific devices (block, USB and PCI devices), please visit their respective pages.
Important security warning: Device handling comes with many security implications. Please make sure you carefully read and understand the security considerations.
Introduction
The interface to deal with devices of all sorts was unified in Qubes 4.0 with the qvm-device
command and the Qubes Devices Widget.
In Qubes 3.X, the Qubes VM Manager dealt with attachment as well.
This functionality was moved to the Qubes Device Widget, the tool tray icon with a yellow square located in the top right of your screen by default.
There are currently four categories of devices Qubes understands:
- Microphones
- Block devices
- USB devices
- PCI devices
Microphones, block devices and USB devices can be attached with the GUI-tool. PCI devices can be attached using the Qube Settings, but require a VM reboot.
General Qubes Device Widget Behavior And Handling
When clicking on the tray icon (which looks similar to this): several device-classes separated by lines are displayed as tooltip. Block devices are displayed on top, microphones one below and USB-devices at the bottom.
On most laptops, integrated hardware such as cameras and fingerprint-readers are implemented as USB-devices and can be found here.
Attaching Using The Widget
Click the tray icon. Hover on a device you want to attach to a VM. A list of running VMs (except dom0) appears. Click on one and your device will be attached!
Detaching Using The Widget
To detach a device, click the Qubes Devices Widget icon again. Attached devices are displayed in bold. Hover the one you want to detach. A list of VMs appears, one showing the eject symbol:
Attaching a Device to Several VMs
Only mic
should be attached to more than one running VM.
You may assign a device to more than one VM (using the --persistent
option), however, only one of them can be started at the same time.
But be careful: There is a bug in qvm-device block
or qvm-block
which will allow you to attach a block device to two running VMs.
Don’t do that!
General qvm-device
Command Line Tool Behavior
All devices, including PCI-devices, may be attached from the commandline using the qvm-device
-tools.
Device Classes
qvm-device
expects DEVICE_CLASS as first argument.
DEVICE_CLASS can be one of
pci
usb
block
mic
Actions
qvm-device
supports three actions:
list
(ls, l) - list all devices of DEVICE_CLASSattach
(at, a) - attach a specific device of DEVICE_CLASSdetach
(dt, d) - detach a specific device of DEVICE_CLASS
Global Options
These three options are always available:
--help
,-h
- show help message and exit--verbose
,-v
- increase verbosity--quiet
,-q
- decrease verbosity
A full command consists of one DEVICE_CLASS and one action. If no action is given, list is implied. DEVICE_CLASS however is required.
SYNOPSIS:
qvm-device DEVICE_CLASS {action} [action-specific arguments] [options]
Actions
Actions are applicable to every DEVICE_CLASS and expose some additional options.
Listing Devices
The list
action lists known devices in the system.
list
accepts VM-names to narrow down listed devices.
Devices available in, as well as attached to the named VMs will be listed.
list
accepts two options:
--all
- equivalent to specifying every VM name afterlist
. No VM-name implies--all
.--exclude
- exclude VMs from--all
. Requires--all
.
SYNOPSIS
qvm-device DEVICE_CLASS {list|ls|l} [--all [--exclude VM [VM [...]]] | VM [VM [...]]]
Attaching Devices
The attach
action assigns an exposed device to a VM.
This makes the device available in the VM it’s attached to.
Required argument are targetVM and sourceVM:deviceID.
(sourceVM:deviceID can be determined from list
output)
attach
accepts two options:
--persistent
- attach device on targetVM-boot. If the device is unavailable (physically missing or sourceVM not started), booting the targetVM fails.--option
,-o
- set additional options specific to DEVICE_CLASS.
SYNOPSIS
qvm-device DEVICE_CLASS {attach|at|a} targetVM sourceVM:deviceID [options]
Detaching Devices
The detach
action removes an assigned device from a targetVM.
It won’t be available afterwards anymore.
Though it tries to do so gracefully, beware that data-connections might be broken unexpectedly, so close any transaction before detaching a device!
If no specific sourceVM:deviceID
combination is given, all devices of that DEVICE_CLASS will be detached.
detach
accepts no options.
SYNOPSIS
qvm-device DEVICE_CLASS {detach|dt|d} targetVM [sourceVM:deviceID]