Qubes: Recover Data from AppVM
QubesOS secures data by creating AppVMs and when an AppVM won’t start it is difficult to get access to the data inside the AppVM. This guide will show you how to safely access the data in the AppVM and transfer it to another AppVM
Security is great until you are on the wrong side of the fence, one of the main reasons that people ignore security is the inconvenience caused through self inflicted security practices. A perfect example of this is crypto wallets, when the password and seed phrase are lost then all crypto inside the wallet is inaccessible. The cryptography that makes crypto possible is also the same encryption methods that bar assess to token and funds
Qubes: When an AppVM doesn't load
If an AppVM is not loading in Qubes before trying the below method it is advisable to check that the Qubes as plenty of disk space, this can be done ny checking the disk space used in the Qube Manager and increasing this in the Qube Settings for the AppVM. If there the AppVM is still running and won’t gracefully shut down then try to kill it. It is also worth while restarting Qubes in case a hung process is preventing the AppVM from starting
Recovering Data from AppVM
The method for accessing the data requires changing the template the AppVM is based. Before doing this I clone the AppVM and leave the original AppVM untouched, allowing all changes to easily be reverted. Once the AppVM has been cloned the AppVM template can be changed in the Qube Manager by right clicking on the cloned AppVM, selecting Template and from the following menu Fedora if previously using Debian (or the other way round depending on the original AppVM template). Once this is done then the File Manager should load and the files can be transferred to a working AppVM
1// Clone AppVM
2// Change Template of Clone AppVM
3// Access File Manager of Clone AppVM
4// Transfer File to working AppVM
TLDR; This guide shows how to access data from an AppVM that won’t start, this is done by cloning the AppVM, changing the template and then transferring the files to a working AppVM
