Qubes ISO building

Note: These instructions concern the older Qubes builder (v1). It supports only building Qubes 4.2 or earlier.
The build process has been completely rewritten in qubes-builder v2. This can be used for building Qubes R4.2 and later versions, and all related components.

Build Environment

Fedora 36 (and 37) has been successfully used to build Qubes R4.1 with the below steps. Other rpm-based operating systems may also work. Travis-CI uses Ubuntu 18.04 to perform test builds, except it can not test the ./setup script.

Notes: On modern Fedora system (like Fedora 37) SeLinux is enforced by default and is blocking the build system. You would get error like “can’t create transaction lock on /…/rpm/.rpm.lock (Permission denied)”. You can set SeLinux to permissive mode with

sudo setenforce 0

In dom0, install the Fedora 36 (or 37) template if you don’t already have it.

sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-template-fedora-36

Create a standalone AppVM from the Fedora template. Set private storage to at least 60 GB if you will be building only the default templates; 100 GB or more if you plan on additional. It’s not required, but if you allocate additional CPU cores, the build process can utilize them at some steps such as the kernel build. Likewise, more memory (up to 16 GB) can help. Last, you may want to disable memory balancing, but keep in mind the impact on your other qubes.

Once you’ve built the development AppVM, open a Terminal window to it and install the necessary dependencies (see QubesBuilder for more info):

$ sudo dnf install git createrepo rpm-build rpm-sign make python3-sh rpmdevtools rpm-sign dialog perl-open python3-pyyaml perl-Digest-MD5 perl-Digest-SHA

Get the necessary keys to verify the sources (run these and other commands below as a regular user, not root):

wget https://keys.qubes-os.org/keys/qubes-master-signing-key.asc
gpg --import qubes-master-signing-key.asc
gpg --edit-key 36879494
fpr
# Verify fingerprint! See Note below!
# Once verified, set trust to *ultimate*
# (Typical sequence is trust, 5, Y, q)
wget https://keys.qubes-os.org/keys/qubes-developers-keys.asc
gpg --import qubes-developers-keys.asc

Note In the above process, we do not rely on the security of our server (keys.qubes-os.org) nor the connection (ssl, cert) – we only rely on you getting the Qubes Master Signing Key fingerprint somehow and ensuring they match! See verifying signatures for verification sources.

Now let’s bootstrap the builder. Unfortunately, the builder cannot verify itself (the classic Chicken and Egg problem), so we need to verify the signature manually:

git clone https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-builder.git
cd qubes-builder
git tag -v `git describe`

Note It’s very important to check if the verification message contains “Good signature from …” and does not contain “WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!”.

Assuming the verification went fine, we’re good to go with all the rest without ever thinking more about verifying digital signatures on all the rest of the components, apart from an additional step if doing a non-scripted build. The builder will do that for us for each component, every time we build, even for all auxiliary files (e.g. Xen or Linux kernel sources).

Build using setup script

Let’s configure the builder first (see procedure at bottom if you would prefer to manually configure):

cd ~/qubes-builder
./setup
# Select Yes to add Qubes Master Signing Key
# Select Yes to add Qubes OS Signing Key
# Select 4.1 for version
# Stable
# Select Yes for fast Git cloning
# Select Current (if you want the option to use pre-built packages)
# Select No (we want a full build)
# Select fc36 and bullseye (for the currently shipping templates)
# Select builder-rpm, builder-debian, template-whonix, mgmt-salt
# Select Yes to add adrelanos's third party key
# Select Yes (to download)

Once it completes downloading, re-run setup to add the Whonix templates:

./setup
# Choose the same options as above, except at templates select:
# fc36, bullseye, whonix-gateway-16, whonix-workstation-16

Continue the build process with:

make install-deps
make get-sources

When building the Whonix templates, you will often need to add/update the WHONIX_TBB_VERSION variable in builder.conf at this stage to specify the currently shipping Tor Browser version. See the related note under Extra Whonix Build Options.

You may also want to add COMPONENTS := $(filter-out gcc,$(COMPONENTS)) to bypass a multiple hour compile step. See QubesBuilder for more detail.

Finally, if you are making a test build, use:

make qubes
make iso

Or for a fully signed build (this requires setting SIGN_KEY in builder.conf):

make qubes
make sign-all
make iso

Enjoy your new ISO!

Build using manual steps

Instead of using ./setup, you can manually configure the build. The script takes care of a lot of the keyring preparation for us, so we first need to set that up.

If you will be building Whonix templates:

cd ~
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA
gpg --fingerprint 916B8D99C38EAF5E8ADC7A2A8D66066A2EEACCDA

Note: It’s very important to check the fingerprint displayed against multiple sources such as the Whonix web site, etc. It should look something like this:

pub   rsa4096 2014-01-16 [SC] [expires: 2026-01-23]
      Key fingerprint = 916B 8D99 C38E AF5E 8ADC  7A2A 8D66 066A 2EEA CCDA
uid           [ unknown] Patrick Schleizer <adrelanos@kicksecure.com>
uid           [ unknown] Patrick Schleizer <adrelanos@riseup.net>
uid           [ unknown] Patrick Schleizer <adrelanos@whonix.org>
sub   rsa4096 2014-01-16 [E] [expires: 2026-01-23]
sub   rsa4096 2014-01-16 [A] [expires: 2026-01-23]
sub   rsa4096 2014-01-16 [S] [expires: 2026-01-23]

Next, prepare the Git keyring directory and copy them in:

export GNUPGHOME=~/qubes-builder/keyrings/git
mkdir --parents "$GNUPGHOME"
cp ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg "$GNUPGHOME"
cp ~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg "$GNUPGHOME"
chmod --recursive 700 "$GNUPGHOME"

Copy one of the example configurations:

cd ~/qubes-builder
cp example-configs/qubes-os-master.conf builder.conf

Edit builder.conf, referring to doc/Configuration.md for a description of all available options.