GNOME Boxes aims at providing a simple interface to create and use virtual machines for Linux with GNOME. GNOME Boxes does not allow use of a Persistent Storage.

Running Tails inside a virtual machine has various security implications. Depending on the host operating system and your security needs, running Tails in a virtual machine might be dangerous.

The following instructions have been tested on Debian Jessie.

Installation

To install GNOME Boxes in Debian or Ubuntu, execute the following command:

sudo apt install gnome-boxes

Running Tails from an ISO image

  1. Download Tails as an ISO image, instead of a USB image.

  2. Start GNOME Boxes.

  3. Click on the New button on the top of the window.

  4. In the Source Selection dialog, choose Select a file and browse for the ISO image that you want to start from.

  5. In the Review dialog, click on the Create button on the top of the window.

Shared clipboard

The shared clipboard of GNOME Boxes is enabled by default. This can allow sensitive data to be copied by mistake from the virtual machine onto the host operating system or vice versa.

We recommend you to disable the shared clipboard.

To disable the shared clipboard:

  1. Choose Menu ▸ Properties.

  2. Deselect the Share Clipboard option.