Manually Creating Whonix

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Manually creating Whonix without using Whonix build script or downloads.

This information is outdated!

This is just a draft, unfinished! Just some ideas. Unlikely to be ever finished. For special setups and advanced users only. Only in case the Download version, Other Operating Systems, Physical Isolation or Dev/Build Documentation instructions are not suitable, for example if you like to use another distribution as the base for Whonix-Gateway^™. Dev/Build Anonymity has not been considered.

This assumes Whonix 7 or above.

Dev/Source Code Intro contains a source code introduction.

Look into Whonix source code. It is mostly an installing and copy and paste task.

Look into the source file ./build-steps/45_create-vbox-vm. See function general_setup to see which commands are used to create both Virtual Machines, apply hardware_modifications on both machines, and also apply gateway_specific or workstation_specific accordingly.

After installing the operating system...

• Packages listed in /home/user/Whonix/development/Whonix-Gateway_packages have to be installed on Whonix-Gateway.
• Packages listed in /home/user/Whonix/development/Whonix-Workstation_packages have to be installed on Whonix-Workstation^™.

All files within whonix_gateway folder are configuration files supposed to be installed on Whonix-Gateway. For example /home/user/Whonix/whonix_gateway/usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf is supposed to be installed on Whonix-Gateway under /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf.

All files within whonix_workstation folder are configuration files supposed to be installed on Whonix-Workstation. For example /home/user/Whonix/whonix_workstation/usr/local/bin/xchat-reset is supposed to be copied to /usr/local/bin/xchat-reset on Whonix-Workstation.

whonix_shared are configuration files supposed to be installed on Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation. For example /home/user/Whonix/whonix_shared/etc/sudoers.d/whonix is supposed to be copied to /etc/sudoers.d/whonix on Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation.

You don't have to bother with most other files in Whonix source folder. Just read README and LICENSE.

Chroot Scripts...

• /whonix_gateway/usr/share/whonix/chroot-scripts-pre.d are run inside Whonix-Gateway
• /whonix_workstation/usr/share/whonix/chroot-scripts-pre.d are run inside Whonix-Workstation
• /whonix_shared/usr/share/whonix/chroot-scripts-pre.d are run inside Whonix-Gateway and Whonix-Workstation
• There are also chroot-scripts-post.d folders.

You can also read the scripts and only run the commands you find sensible manually one by one.

See Also

• Dev/Design-Detailed
• Dev/Source Code Intro
• Dev/Technical_Introduction

Footnotes

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