How do I install Whonix on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS?

Question

So how do I do this exactly? Most if not all the tutorials on the internet that show you how to install Whonix on Ubuntu are out of date with incorrect information at this point.

Answer 1

So in order to run Whonix you'll also need VirtualBox so let me walk you through this. First I'll show you how to install both VirtualBox and Whonix and then show you the things you need to do post installation as well.

Also in order for Whonix to even run at all you'll have to go into your computer's UEFI (if your computer is super old it'll be known as BIOS) and turn on virtualization. I'll show you how to do all of this. So let's get started.

This is the official way to install Whonix on Ubuntu

1. Go to the Whonix website and under Download click on Linux

Then click on "Debian, Fedora and Derivatives"

2. Now you should find yourself on this page

So only advanced Linux users are gonna want to install the CLI version of Whonix so choose graphical user interface GUI, which should already be selected.

3. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (as far as I'm aware) does not have curl installed by default so let's install curl before you proceed. Open up Terminal by doing Ctrl + Alt + T and enter this command

    sudo apt update -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt clean -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

Now install curl by running this command

sudo apt install curl

You can check what version of curl you just installed by doing curl --version

4. Enter this

 curl --tlsv1.3 --output whonix-xfce-installer-cli --url https://www.whonix.org/dist-installer-cli 

5. Run the installer

 bash ./whonix-xfce-installer-cli 

Now it will automatically install both VirtualBox and Whonix together. At the very end of the installation process it'll ask you if you want to fire up the Whonix virtual machines (VMs) in VirtualBox, I usually say no to this actually but you can if you want to, but I don't. And this is the official proper way to install Whonix if you're on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

So you've got both VirtualBox and Whonix installed now right?

Well if you don't have virtualization turned on in your computer's UEFI (BIOS on older computers) you can't even run Whonix. So let's get virtualization turned on. I'm pretty sure your virtualization will be turned off but you can check by running this command

lscpu | grep "Virtualization"

If there is no output when you enter that in Terminal then virtualization is disabled, so you'll need to enable it. So be careful here, don't change anything that doesn't need to be changed, you're just gonna do one thing here and one thing only, but boot into your computer's UEFI (BIOS on older computers) you need to turn on virtualization which on your computer might be called VT-x, AMD-V, virtualization, secure virtual machine SVM mode, or MIT perhaps under Advanced Processor Options.

Post installation steps

So there is the Whonix gateway and the Whonix workstation, you need to change the password, they need to be updated, you need to create a shared folder. Let me walk you through the things you need to do post installation. These are all very important steps you need to do in order for Whonix to function properly.

1. Launch VirtualBox, go into apps, search for “virtualbox” and click it when you see it's icon appear.

Then click on Whonix gateway and then click on the green arrow circled in red to start Whonix gateway

2. Then you'll see this, "PERSISTENT Mode USER Session daily activities", if you leave it alone here it'll automatically boot into this mode, this is the default mode it's always going to boot into for gateway. But if you wanted to boot into other modes this is where you'd do it.
3. In the upper left hand corner of the screen click on Applications
4. You see the search bar, enter just two letters in it "sy"
5. And System Maintenance Panel should pop up. Click on it.
6. Click on Manage Passwords
7. Click on User Password
8. Now it will take you into the Terminal where you will choose your password for "user", literally the username for both gateway and workstation will always just be "user". So look at this screenshot, you'll notice it says "Users present on the system: user" and "Enter the username whose password you want to change:" Here is where you'd type in "user" (and press Enter of course) and now type in the password you wish to use for gateway.

And once you're done setting the password you can close the Terminal but don't close the System Maintenance Panel.

9. So on that same System Maintenance Panel, you see "Check for Updates" and "Install Updates"? First click on Check for Updates and then once it's done doing that, then click on Install Updates.

And from time to time you can remove or purge unused packages (it's on the System Maintenance Panel). Also it's probably best to update both Whonix gateway and workstation at least every 2 weeks or so. You'll also have to change the password and update workstation (cause you just did it in gateway) which I'll show you later.

Real quick there is another way to update gateway and change the password using the command line. Let me show you. So you're in gateway right? Open Terminal in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

So in the Terminal run this command, this will update gateway (this is an alternative way to update gateway).

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

And in that same Terminal you can change the password by entering

sudo passwd user

And at this point it'll prompt you to enter in the new password. And that's it for that. Moving on.

Update Whonix workstation and change it's password

1. This is gonna be a little different than what you did in gateway. So remember, first you always fire up gateway and then fire up workstation, it always goes in that order. So fire up workstation. Click workstation and then click start.

2. When you see this screen press the down key to select "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session" and hurry cause you only got 5 seconds before it'll automatically boot into the mode at the top but once you hit the up or down key it'll stop the 5 second countdown so you can choose the boot mode.

3. Now that you're in "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session" now you can change the password and update workstation. So remember you have to manually change the password in both gateway and workstation, and you have to manually update both gateway and workstation. Whonix does not automatically update itself, you have to go into gateway and manually update it and you have to go into workstation and manually update it, and you should manually update them both about every 2 weeks or so. Definitely don't put it off for months and months.

So let's change workstation's password, click on Manage Passwords.

4. Then click on User Password.

5. So in this screenshot you'll notice that it says "Enter the username whose password you want to change:" just enter "user" and hit Enter and then enter in your new password. It should tell you your password was changed successfully and it's ok to close the Terminal.

6. And just like in gateway, you click on Check for Updates first and then click on Install Updates, and this is what you do to update workstation.

Also, just like in gateway you can use the command line to change the password in workstation and update it. So in order to use the command line to do this in workstation, you have to boot into "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session", because in workstation, sudo commands only work in "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session" and they have it set up this way for security reasons. So if you want to change workstation password and update workstation using the command line, boot into "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session"

And click Open Terminal

Now the Terminal should open up and if you want to update workstation enter

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

and if you want to change the password enter

sudo passwd user

And at this point it'll prompt you to enter in the new password. (oh and remember "sudo" commands only work while in "PERSISTENT Mode SYSMAINT Session" on workstation. It's set up that way for security reasons)

So that's how you use command line to update and change password in Whonix workstation.

I should point out

After changing the password and updating both gateway and workstation make sure to restart them in order for the password changes to take effect, so first close workstation and then close gateway (always close workstation first and then close gateway).

Let me show you the proper way to close both gateway and workstation. So take this for example, this is gateway you'll see the X in the upper right hand corner of the screen (this isn't caught in the screenshot unfortunately) but in the upper right hand corner of the screen you'll see the X. Just click on the X and select "Power off the machine" and press OK. This is the proper way to shutdown both gateway and workstation.

The typical way you'll boot into workstation

1. When you fire up workstation (and remember you have to fire up gateway first) you'll see this screen, just leave it alone, don't press any buttons here, and it'll automatically boot into "PERSISTENT Mode USER Session"

Let me show you how to set up the Whonix shared folder

Here, this guide will walk you through it.

How to uninstall Whonix

In case you want to uninstall Whonix follow this guide

End

This is how you install Whonix on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and get it up and running.

One last thing

If you have an older weaker PC or even a modern PC, look at this