How to upgrade to Qubes 4.3

This page explains how to upgrade from Qubes 4.2 to Qubes 4.3. There are two ways to upgrade:

a clean installation
or an in-place upgrade.

In general, a clean installation is simpler and less error-prone, but an in-place upgrade allows you to preserve your customizations.

Warning

It is not possible to upgrade directly from releases earlier than 4.2. If you’re still on an earlier release, please either perform a clean installation of 4.3 or upgrade to 4.2 first.

First step: do a backup

Before attempting either an in-place upgrade or a clean installation, we strongly recommend that you first back up your system so that you don’t lose any data.

You can optionally run the updater to ensure all of your qubes are in their latest version, before doing the backup.

Clean installation of Qubes 4.3

If you would prefer to perform a clean installation rather than upgrading in-place:

Download the latest Qubes 4.3 release.
Follow the installation guide to install Qubes 4.3.
Restore from your backup on your new 4.3 installation.
(optional) If you restored templates from previous Qubes versions (i.e.: Qubes 4.2), during the previous step, you need to follow some extra steps:
1. Install in dom0 the qubes-dist-upgrade tool, in order to be able to upgrade the templates to the Qubes 4.3 version:
```
[user@dom0] $ sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-dist-upgrade
```
2. Change your templates to use the 4.3 repositories instead of the 4.2 ones. You do this with the following command in the dom0 terminal:
```
[user@dom0] $ sudo qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever=4.3 --template-standalone-upgrade
```
  Warning
  
  This step is critical to ensure the templates will receive updates once Qubes 4.2 reaches end-of-life (EOL).
When this completes, you can start using Qubes OS 4.3.

In-place upgrade from Qubes 4.2 to Qubes 4.3

In this section, you will find a quick how-to and then a detailed description of the upgrade process. The upgrade may take several hours, and will download several gigabytes of data.

Note

When trying to upgrade to a release candidate, remember to permanently enable the qubes-dom0-current-testing repository.

How-to upgrade from Qubes 4.2 to Qubes 4.3 in-place

You have to install qubes-dist-upgrade in dom0:

[user@dom0] $ sudo qubes-dom0-update qubes-dist-upgrade

After installing the tool, pre-reboot stages can be performed at once with:
```
[user@dom0] $ sudo qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever 4.3 --all-pre-reboot
```
Optionally, an --assumeyes (or -y) option can be used to automatically accept all the actions without confirmation.

Alternatively, each upgrade stage can be started separately (see the list of options above).
After completing STAGE 1 through STAGE 3, restart the system.

Then perform the final steps:

[user@dom0] $ sudo qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever 4.3 --all-post-reboot

After performing those steps, it’s recommended to restart the system one last time.
When this completes, you can start using Qubes OS 4.3.

Description of the upgrade process

In-place upgrade is a complex operation. For this reason, we provide a qubes-dist-upgrade tool to handle all the necessary steps automatically. You have to install it in dom0.

The upgrade consists of six stages available in two phase:

three before restarting the system (option: --all-pre-reboot), STAGE 1 to STAGE 3:
1. Update of dom0, TemplatesVM and StandaloneVM. (option: --update,)
2. Update ‘qubes-release’ for Qubes R4.3. (option: --release-upgrade,)
3. Upgrade to Qubes R4.3 and Fedora 41 repositories. (option: --dist-upgrade,)
and three after restarting the system (option: --all-post-reboot), STAGE 4 to STAGE 6:
1. Upgrade templates and standalone VMs to R4.3 repository. (option: --template-standalone-upgrade,)
2. Finalize upgrade (option: --finalize,). It does:
  - resync applications and features
  - create LVM devices cache
  - update PCI device IDs
  - enable minimal-netvm / minimal-usbvm services
  - cleanup salt states
  - enable preloaded disposables if system has more than 16GB memory
3. Check if all templates are supported (option: --check-supported-template)

Full list of options can be obtained with qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever 4.3 --help:

Usage: /usr/bin/qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever=VERSION [OPTIONS]...

This script is used for updating QubesOS to the next release.

Options:
    --releasever=VERSION               Specify target release, for example 4.3 or 4.2.



This script is used for updating current QubesOS R4.2 to R4.3.

Options:
    --update, -t                       (STAGE 1) Update of dom0, TemplatesVM and StandaloneVM.
    --release-upgrade, -r              (STAGE 2) Update 'qubes-release' for Qubes R4.3.
    --dist-upgrade, -s                 (STAGE 3) Upgrade to Qubes R4.3 and Fedora 41 repositories.
    --template-standalone-upgrade, -l  (STAGE 4) Upgrade templates and standalone VMs to R4.3 repository.
    --finalize, -x                     (STAGE 5) Finalize upgrade. It does:
                                         - resync applications and features
                                         - create LVM devices cache
                                         - update PCI device IDs
                                         - enable minimal-netvm / minimal-usbvm services
                                         - cleanup salt states
                                         - enable preloaded disposables if system has more than 15GB memory
    --check-supported-templates        (STAGE 6) Check if all templates are supported
    --all-pre-reboot                   Execute stages 1 to 3
    --all-post-reboot                  Execute stages 4 to 6

    --assumeyes, -y                    Automatically answer yes for all questions.
    --usbvm, -u                        Current UsbVM defined (default 'sys-usb').
    --netvm, -n                        Current NetVM defined (default 'sys-net').
    --updatevm, -f                     Current UpdateVM defined (default 'sys-firewall').
    --skip-template-upgrade, -j        Don't upgrade TemplateVM to R4.3 repositories.
    --skip-standalone-upgrade, -k      Don't upgrade StandaloneVM to R4.3 repositories.
    --only-update                      Apply STAGE 4 and resync appmenus only to
                                       selected qubes (comma separated list).
    --keep-running                     List of extra VMs to keep running during update (comma separated list).
                                       Can be useful if multiple updates proxy VMs are configured.
    --max-concurrency                  How many TemplateVM/StandaloneVM to update in parallel in STAGE 1
                                       (default 4).
    --enable-current-testing, -e       Enable current-testing repositories for the update time.
                                       The enabling with this option do not persist after
                                       successful update. If you want to keep it enabled,
                                       use the normal method instead.

Last step: update your system

After upgrading or performing a clean installation, we strongly recommend updating your system.