qubes-terminal-hotkeys

Adds short commands to Qubes OS dom0 for convenient VM management without any GUI.

This tool is intended for Qubes OS users who prefer the keyboard over the mouse and commonly use dom0 command prompts.

Table of contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Uninstall
• Copyright

Installation

1. Download this repository with git clone https://github.com/3hhh/qubes-terminal-hotkeys.git or your browser and copy it to dom0.
2. Move the repository to a directory of your liking.
3. Copy qubes-terminal-hotkeys.conf to /etc/.
4. Set your configuration inside /etc/qubes-terminal-hotkeys.conf. In particular enable/disable the hotkeys you need.
5. Inside your repository clone, execute sudo ./installer install.

Usage

All of the following examples assume that you opened a dom0 terminal or other command prompt.

E.g. with awesome VM you'd usually press Meta-R on your keyboard to obtain a command prompt.

The below examples also assume the supplied default configuration. You can easily make the commands do something entirely different according to your configuration.

The syntax is always [hotkey] [vm] [additional arguments].

Examples

q d

Explanation: Start firefox inside a disposable VM.

q d t

Explanation: Start a terminal inside a disposable VM.

q m

Explanation: Start thunderbird inside the e-mail VM.

q m f

Explanation: Start firefox inside the e-mail VM.

q

Explanation: Start a dom0 terminal.

q d c www.qubes-os.org

Explanation: Start chromium inside a disposable VM and visit the Qubes OS homepage.

q net

Explanation: Start a terminal for the VM sys-net.

q somevm someapp

Explanation: Start someapp inside somevm (full names are also supported as fallback).

r m net

Explanation: Execute the default commands for the VMs e-mail (i.e. thunderbird) and sys-net (i.e. xterm). The r hotkey does the same as the q hotkey, but instead of command arguments it supports multiple VMs.

s m net

Explanation: Shut the VMs e-mail and sys-net down.

Uninstall

1. Inside the repository clone, execute sudo ./installer uninstall.
2. Remove the repository clone from dom0.
3. Remove your configuration from /etc/qubes-terminal-hotkeys.conf.

Copyright

© 2022 David Hobach GPLv3

See LICENSE for details.