Follow Whonix ™ Developments

Introduction

It is important to read the latest Whonix news to stay in touch with ongoing developments. This way users benefit from notifications concerning important security vulnerabilities and improved releases which address identified issues, like those affecting the updater or other core elements.

Stay Tuned

Whonix News Forums

For user convenience, there are multiple avenues for receiving news. Choose the most suitable option below.

1. Whonix Important News Forum Tag (v3 onion) - Only critical information is reported. This includes security vulnerabilities and new stable Whonix versions. It is best suited for people with very limited time and interest in Whonix development and news.
2. Whonix News Forums (v3 onion) - This includes everything including important news and has a relaxed posting policy. Testers-only and developers Whonix versions are announced here, along with the publishing of news about updated articles, new features, future features, development, calls for testing, general project ideas and so on.
3. Other choices.

If time-constrained, users should at least read the Whonix Important News Forum Tag. Follow the Whonix News Forums if detailed anonymity / privacy / security-related issues are of interest, or to follow recent Whonix developments.

Operating System Updates

As strongly recommended in the Security Guide, it is necessary to regularly check for operating system updates on the host operating system, and both the Whonix-Workstation ™ and Whonix-Gateway ™.

Social Media Profiles

There are some Whonix Social Media Profiles online, but please do not rely on them for the latest Whonix News or to contact Whonix developers (see Contact for contact information).

As some users will disregard this advice, messages from the Whonix Feature Blog are automatically mirrored to the Whonix Twitter Profile and the Whonix Facebook Profile. However, they are not mirrored to the Whonix Google+ Profile. Diaspora Whonix ™ and Tumblr accounts have also recently been established.

If it is safe to inform others about Whonix ™, feel free to Contribute via an anonymous account that follows or likes these profiles. This page can be shared on: Twitter | Facebook.

Source Code

If Whonix source code updates are of interest, subscribe to code changes.

Tor Bootstrap

Tor bootstrap refers to the process of attempting to connect to the Tor network (successfully or unsuccessfully). Familiar output related to this process includes: "Tor connecting xx percent...", "Tor not connected", "Tor connected" and so on. Bootstrapping does not refer to related concepts, such as whether connections are "secure", "not secure", "anonymous" or "not anonymous".

Tor Browser

Tor Browser's built-in update check mechanism also works in Whonix ™, so use it whenever updates become available.

For additional information about Tor Browser updates see Tor Browser. Additionally, consider subscribing to https://blog.torproject.org for developments from The Tor Project.

Running whonixcheck

whonixcheck verifies that the Whonix system is up-to-date and that everything is in proper working order.

Users can manually run whonixcheck to check the system status by following the steps below.

How to Manually Run whonixcheck

If you are using Qubes-Whonix ™, complete the following steps.

Qubes App Launcher (blue/grey "Q") → click on the Whonix VM you want to check → whonixcheck / System Check

If you are using a graphical Whonix, complete the following steps.

Start Menu → System → whonixcheck

If you are using a terminal-only Whonix, complete the following steps.

whonixcheck

whonixcheck

Depending on the system specifications, whonixcheck may take up to a few minutes to run. Assuming everything is working as intended, the output should highlight each INFO heading in green (not red). A successful whonixcheck process results in output similar to the sample below.

Sample whonixcheck Output

[INFO] [whonixcheck] anon-whonix | Whonix-Workstation ™ | whonix-ws-15 TemplateBased AppVM | Thu Aug 9 18:09:23 UTC 2018
[INFO] [whonixcheck] Connected to Tor.
[INFO] [whonixcheck] Whonix APT Repository: Enabled.
When the Whonix team releases STRETCH-PROPOSED-UPDATES updates, they will be AUTOMATICALLY installed (when you run apt-get dist-upgrade) along with updated packages from the Debian team. Please read https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Trust to understand the risk.
If you want to change this, use:
sudo whonix_repository
[INFO] [whonixcheck] Debian Package Update Check: Checking for software updates via apt-get... ( Documentation: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Update ) [INFO] [whonixcheck] Debian Package Update Check Result: No updates found via apt-get.

Whonix Repository Testers

Whonix requires a critical mass of users to properly test planned updates by enabling the stable-proposed-updates or testers repository. Otherwise, bugs might go undiscovered and be inadvertently introduced into the stable repository.

To ensure a stable Whonix system is available at all times, willing testers should:

• Create new Whonix-Workstation ™ and Whonix-Gateway ™ TemplateVMs solely for testing.
• Enable the stable-proposed-updates or testers repository via the Whonix repository tool.
• Platform-specific advice:
  
  • Non-Qubes-Whonix ™: Create a clean snapshot or use Multiple Whonix-Workstation ™ / Multiple Whonix-Gateway ™.
  • Qubes-Whonix ™: Use Multiple TemplateVMs and separate sys-whonix-test and anon-whonix-test TemplateBasedVMs.

Then perform normal user activities.

Please only report bugs after first searching relevant Whonix forums and developer portals for the problem.

Footnotes

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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?)

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