securedrop-client Supress non-actionable (sys/sd)-whonix messages

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Description

Whonix is quite verbose and sometimes information is not important at all. One specific example, which is complicating automated testing is when whonix shows a dialog just to inform that some repo is enabled. This is unnecessary.

Steps to Reproduce

Install workstation on a clean Qubes system.

Expected Behavior

No unactionable information is shown to the user.

Actual Behavior

Screenshot 2024-10-01 at 12-10-12 Qubes OS openQA qubesos-4 2-update-x86_64-Builddeeplow_openqa-tests-qubesos_25-system_tests_securedrop@64bit test results

Comments

This may end up being an upstream "issue", but if there is anyway we can suppress this, it would be a very nice addition.

Oct 01 '24 11:10 deeplow

Turns out we can (and probably should) hide these messages via a config file in /etc/systemcheck.d/. Something like this would suppress all systemcheck non-actionable messages (for SD users):

systemcheck_skip_functions+=" check_apt_repository"   # Skip info about enabled derivative repository
systemcheck_skip_functions+=" check_operating_system" # Skip OS updates check (already ensured in SD updater)
systemcheck_skip_functions+=" donate"

One thing to consider, though, is that because we're installing it in whonix-gateway-17, sys-whonix may end up also being affected.

Oct 18 '24 13:10 deeplow

Somehow I came across a double-popup. Not sure how to reproduce / what caused it, though.

Screenshot 2024-11-05 at 16-43-10 Qubes OS openQA qubesos-4 2-update-x86_64-Builddeeplow_openqa-tests-qubesos_25-system_tests_securedrop@64bit test results

Nov 05 '24 16:11 deeplow

Found another instance where it only mentions the derivative repository, but not donate button and the update check. And this time it showed as the system booted up for the first time and not when doing the sys-whonix configuartion step.

Screenshot 2024-11-08 at 10-39-42 Qubes OS openQA qubesos-4 2-securedrop-x86_64-Build2024110810-4 2-securedrop_install@64bit test results

Nov 08 '24 10:11 deeplow

For the time being I've been able find a way to suppress these messages without needing to remove the dialogs in QA, but it waits ~300s trying to dismiss a potential prompt which may choose not to pop up.

Nov 26 '24 12:11 deeplow

Closing given plans to phase out Whonix.

May 22 '25 18:05 eloquence

Not super relevant since we've already decided to move away from whonix, but I just wanted to share something that showed up in a recent test:

Aug 15 '25 09:08 deeplow

Now thinking more about it, we may not be fully free from these, as sys-whonix still has them. Maybe we could consider disabling sys-whonix startup on boot to avoid running (and having our users) run into these.

Aug 15 '25 09:08 deeplow

Maybe we could consider disabling sys-whonix startup on boot to avoid running (and having our users) run into these.

I think that would be reasonable.

Aug 18 '25 13:08 legoktm

Great! I've created a follow-up issue to track this: https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop-workstation/issues/1410

Aug 19 '25 15:08 deeplow

Now doing a clean 4.3-rc3 install and the prompt is very large now:

We should make sure we at least document it.

Oct 29 '25 16:10 deeplow