Xubuntu as custom Whonix workstation

If you are a Whonix user this guide may be useful for you. Sometimes when I want to torify whole traffic from a virtual system I am using Whonix Gateway virtual machine. For people who haven’t use Whonix yet here is a short description with links:

Whonix ™ consists of two VMs: the Whonix-Gateway ™ and the Whonix-Workstation ™. The former runs Tor processes and acts as a gateway, while the latter runs user applications on a completely isolated network.

So sometimes in my virtual lab I want to use standard Linux distribution instead of the Whonix Workstation. There is a quite nice documentation about setting up a network in other operating systems. There is also section about Ubuntu, but since network configuration is now based on netplan, the wiki entry didn’t work for me. I set it up by myself, and decided to share the configuration steps. I did it on Xubuntu 22.04.

Whonix network configuration for Xubuntu

First, run the following set of commands to disable the NetworkManager:

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sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl mask NetworkManager

Next, start and enable the systemd-networkd service:

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sudo systemctl unmask systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
sudo systemctl start systemd-networkd.service

edit conf file:

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sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml

Your config should look like the one below:

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network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp0s3:
      dhcp4: no
      addresses:
        - 10.152.152.12/18
      routes:
        - to: default
          via: 10.152.152.10
      nameservers:
        addresses: [10.152.152.10]

where enp0s3 is the name of your network adapter and apply new configuration:

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network.dns.blockDotOnion false

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extensions.screenshots.disabled	true

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browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.telemetry false
browser.ping-centre.telemetry false
browser.tabs.crashReporting.sendReport false
toolkit.telemetry.enabled false
toolkit.telemetry.unified false

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browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.discoverystreamfeed false
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories false
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.section.highlights.includePocket false
browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.showSponsored false
extensions.pocket.enabled false

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network.dns.disablePrefetch true
network.prefetch-next false

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pdfjs.enableScripting false

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identity.fxaccounts.enabled false

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dom.webnotifications.enabled false

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media.peerconnection.enabled false
media.navigator.enabled false

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privacy.resistFingerprinting true

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dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled false