Recovery
From Whonix
Contents
Recovery Mode[edit]
Non-Qubes-Whonix only.
If an error occurs that prevents Whonix ™ from booting, it is possible to try and boot Whonix ™ in recovery mode to fix the problem. It is advisable to learn how to use recovery mode while everything is still functional in case of future issues.
- After powering on a Non-Qubes-Whonix VM, you will see the virtual BIOS for a second, then the grub boot menu. The grub boot menu is easily identified by the first line of text which begins with
GNU GRUB. - Use the arrow keys to navigate and select
Advanced Options for Whonix GNU/Linux. - Press
Enter. - Choose the second option which at the end displays
(recovery mode). - Press
Enter. - Somewhere in the output, a message similar to the following will appear (it might be entangled with other debug output):
Give root password for maintenance (Or press control + d to continue):
- Enter the root password.
- While typing, no asterisk symbols (
*) will appear; the password must be typed "blind". [1] - Press
Enter. - The default keyboard layout will be
en-US. To change this setting, see: Keyboard Layout. - Enter
exitto continue booting orpowerofforreboot.
TODO: Explore whether networking is possible and how to transfer files out of the VM.
Unlock User Account: Excessive Wrong Password Entry Attempts[edit]
See: Unlock User Account: Excessive Wrong Password Entry Attempts.
Chroot[edit]
If an error occurs that prevents Whonix ™ from booting, it is possible to chroot into Whonix ™ from a live CD to fix the problem.
A disk image must be downloaded for this purpose -- Debian Live images or Archiso are useful options for this procedure.
Virtualbox[edit]
In Virtualbox, navigate to the VM storage settings. At the second controller, click the optical disk icon and add the disk image.
In the Motherboard settings, move the Optical disk component to the top of the boot order, press OK and start the VM.
KVM[edit]
In virt-manager, click on the VM, click the settings icon at the top and click "Add Hardware". In "Storage", change the device type to "CDROM device" and add the disk image. Click "Finish" and at the boot options setting, move the CDROM to the top of the boot order.
Qubes-Whonix[edit]
This procedure is undocumented.
Booting into the Live CD[edit]
After booting into the Live CD, follow these steps.
1. List the available drives and partitions.
fdisk -l
2. Mount the partition.
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Replace "/dev/sda1" with the drive partition name.
3. Chroot into the partition.
chroot /mnt /bin/bash
4. Optional: If the PATH variable is incorrect, it can be fixed with the following command.
source /etc/profile
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ See also: Whonix Default Passwords.
No user support in comments. See Support. Comments will be deleted after some time. Specifically after comments have been addressed in form of wiki enhancements. See Wiki Comments Policy.
Have you read our Documentation, Technical Design and Developer Portal links yet?
Follow: Twitter | Facebook | gab.ai | Stay Tuned | Whonix News
This is a wiki. Want to improve this page? Help is welcome and volunteer contributions are happily considered! Read, understand and agree to Conditions for Contributions to Whonix ™, then Edit! Edits are held for moderation.
Copyright (C) 2012 - 2019 ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LP. Whonix ™ is a trademark. Whonix ™ is a licensee of the Open Invention Network. Unless otherwise noted, the content of this page is copyrighted and licensed under the same Freedom Software license as Whonix ™ itself. (Why?)
Whonix ™ is a derivative of and not affiliated with Debian. Debian is a registered trademark owned by Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
Whonix ™ is produced independently from the Tor® anonymity software and carries no guarantee from The Tor Project about quality, suitability or anything else.
By using our website, you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agreed to our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms of Service, and E-Sign Consent. Whonix ™ is provided by ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LP. See Imprint.
Enable comment auto-refresher