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Last active October 3, 2024 17:02
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Proxmox - SPICE Client setup for MacOS

Proxmox - SPICE client setup for MacOS

  1. Install a working (and compiled) version of virt-viewer. You may view the homebrew package's upstream source on GitHub.

    brew tap jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager
    brew install virt-viewer
  2. Once that's installed should be able make a call remote-viewer with a pve-spice.vv file downloaded from proxmox web interface

    remote-viewer pve-spice.vv

    Check out this useful script for debugging. There are also several other cli tools like this one on GitHub that can be used to test the same sort of thing.

Improving Quality of Life

We want remote-viewer to automatically start and open the session when we double click the VM entry in proxmox. To do that we need to first create a small helper application.

  1. Launch Automator and select Application from the dropdown list, when prompted.

    Screen Shot 2021-07-15 at 1 39 31 PM

  2. Search for shell and drag to the right. The contents:

    /usr/local/bin/remote-viewer "$@"

    Make sure to select as arguments for passing the input. Save as ~/Applications/pve-spice-launcher.app.

    Screen Shot 2021-07-15 at 2 13 01 PM

  3. Locate a pve-spice.vv file and right click, and go to Get Info -> Open With -> Change All, look for the .app file you just made.

    Screen Shot 2022-02-16 at 11 26 22 AM

  4. In Chrome, click on the small arrow on the list of downloads at the bottom, and select "Always open files of this type"

    Screen Shot 2021-07-15 at 2 02 46 PM

  5. If everything is set up correctly you should be able to double-click on the VM in the left pane of Proxmox and remote-viewer should start up and take care of the rest.

    Note: the pve-spice.vv files will be automatically deleted by remote-viewer

    Screen Shot 2021-07-15 at 2 05 57 PM

    Screen Shot 2021-07-15 at 4 42 21 PM

Enjoy!

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
# needs pve-manager >= 3.1-44
usage() {
echo "Usage: $0 [-u <string>] [-p <string>] vmid [node [proxy]]"
echo
echo "-u username. Default root@pam"
echo "-p password. Default ''"
echo
echo "vmid: id for VM"
echo "node: Proxmox cluster node name"
echo "proxy: DNS or IP (use <node> as default)"
exit 1
}
PASSWORD=""
USERNAME=""
while getopts ":u:p:" o; do
case "${o}" in
u)
USERNAME="${OPTARG}"
;;
p)
PASSWORD="${OPTARG}"
;;
*)
usage
;;
esac
done
shift $((OPTIND-1))
if [[ -z "$PASSWORD" ]]; then
PASSWORD=""
fi
if [[ -z "$USERNAME" ]]; then
USERNAME='root@pam'
fi
DEFAULTHOST="$(hostname -f)"
# select VM
[[ -z "$1" ]] && usage
VMID="$1"
#[[ -z "$2" ]] && usage
NODE="${2:-$DEFAULTHOST}"
if [[ -z "$3" ]]; then
PROXY="$NODE"
else
PROXY="$3"
fi
NODE="${NODE%%\.*}"
DATA="$(curl -f -s -S -k --data-urlencode "username=$USERNAME" --data-urlencode "password=$PASSWORD" "https://$PROXY:8006/api2/json/access/ticket")"
echo "AUTH OK"
TICKET="${DATA//\"/}"
TICKET="${TICKET##*ticket:}"
TICKET="${TICKET%%,*}"
TICKET="${TICKET%%\}*}"
CSRF="${DATA//\"/}"
CSRF="${CSRF##*CSRFPreventionToken:}"
CSRF="${CSRF%%,*}"
CSRF="${CSRF%%\}*}"
curl -f -s -S -k -b "PVEAuthCookie=$TICKET" -H "CSRFPreventionToken: $CSRF" "https://$PROXY:8006/api2/spiceconfig/nodes/$NODE/qemu/$VMID/spiceproxy" -d "proxy=$PROXY" > $NODE-$VMID.vv
exec remote-viewer $NODE-$VMID.vv
@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 6, 2024

Please report back.

Hi Fskale, Thanks for sharing, for me it works. I have old MacBook Air with the latest Sonoma 14.3.

Did you try multi monitoring as well ?
It took me several weeks to get a compiled binary. (metal framework etc.)

@uamarchuan
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yes, there seems to be no problem with multi-monitoring... I turn on the second monitor and can move firefox to the other display
Screenshot 2024-02-06 at 19 55 11
I can do several tests for you on my mac, just let me know.

@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 6, 2024

Is the mouse in sync ?
If i connect to an ovirt 4.3 vm using encryption and the spice protocol, my mouse is not in sync.
But this could be because of the nature of the spice protocol compatibility issues and "ancient" ovirt 4.3 ;-)

@uamarchuan
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I don't have problem with mouse sync.
What I've noticed that share clipboard is not work properly. From Spice to host I can copy but from host to Spice not :(

@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 10, 2024

I don't have problem with mouse sync. What I've noticed that share clipboard is not work properly. From Spice to host I can copy but from host to Spice not :(

For that to work, you've to install spice-vdagent.
Docs:
https://www.spice-space.org/spice-user-manual.html#agent

@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 11, 2024

Today i started my "cross compile challenge" for arm64e support.
About 30% done so far. (base and dep libs)
Will keep you informed…

@maximko
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maximko commented Feb 28, 2024

Please report back.

Thank you, works for me on Ventura but crash happens when I copy text inside vm:
Gdk:ERROR:../../../../spice-jhbuild/source/gtk+-3.24.36/gdk/quartz/gdkeventloop-quartz.c:585:select_thread_collect_poll: assertion failed: (ufds[i].fd == current_pollfds[i].fd) Bail out! Gdk:ERROR:../../../../spice-jhbuild/source/gtk+-3.24.36/gdk/quartz/gdkeventloop-quartz.c:585:select_thread_collect_poll: assertion failed: (ufds[i].fd == current_pollfds[i].fd) RemoteViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/RemoteViewer: line 107: 82349 Abort trap: 6 "$bundle_contents/MacOS/$name-bin" "$@" $EXTRA_ARGS
Also clipboard sharing from macos to guest doesn't work.

@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 28, 2024

Since the assertion failed, there must a problem with the poll syscall in the vda agent plugin.
Are you using the vda agent in the vm ?
Check using dmesg on the vm side if there's a segfault…
Same issue already reported: jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager#204
I will test it on my own, but not until next week…
I'm quite busy at the moment…

@fskale
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fskale commented Feb 28, 2024

There are some patch which could be applied to gtk+ version 3.24.
There were some changes to the UI in gdkevents-quartz.c.
Not sure when i've time for that to patch, compile and test. (takes a lot of time ;-) )

@fskale
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fskale commented Apr 15, 2024

Hi again, i uploaded the App on my private cloud: https://wolke.dah.am/s/pbK73ZAXxpaskis It's compiled only for x86_64. The porting to AARCH64 is work in progress (>= 20%) . (Many header files must be patched) Tested OS: 12.x and 13.x x86_64 Please report back.

Since there's suspicious traffic, i'm adding the SH256 of the ZIP file here.
d21d6003f57935b275b1190a3405cbf65931d35aacaf8d360a51372aa40b3279

Check before running the app !

@TheQL
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TheQL commented May 3, 2024

It's not entirely related to this gist, but it would improve my quality of life greatly!
I have a German keyboard layout Mac and whilst most characters work out of the box I cannot get \ and | working for the life of it.
"<>" and "^°" are just switched but basically work. I tried to get it remapped using --keymap but even some of the most basic remappings I tried didn't work, like ALT or ALT_L modifiers were completely ignored. Does anybody have any experience with this and can point my into the right direction? Thanks!

@fskale
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fskale commented May 3, 2024

It's not entirely related to this gist, but it would improve my quality of life greatly! I have a German keyboard layout Mac and whilst most characters work out of the box I cannot get \ and | working for the life of it. "<>" and "^°" are just switched but basically work. I tried to get it remapped using --keymap but even some of the most basic remappings I tried didn't work, like ALT or ALT_L modifiers were completely ignored. Does anybody have any experience with this and can point my into the right direction? Thanks!

It works, using my compiled app:

| -> right option key + ?
\ -> right option key + 7

Be sure to load the german keymap if not defined (console-data).
if not: loadkeys de

@TheQL
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TheQL commented May 3, 2024

It works, using my compiled app:

| -> right option key + ?
\ -> right option key + 7

Slightly different for me, but using the right option key was the hint I needed! Found what I searched for plus some brackets ;)

@jamesgreenblue
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Does this require rosetta?

@fskale
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fskale commented May 15, 2024

Does this require rosetta?

Not if you're using an Intel Mac.
Porting to ARM is still work in progress…

@TheQL
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TheQL commented May 15, 2024

Does this require rosetta?

Hm, the remote-viewer itself doesn't require Rosetta if you're using brew for arm. Not sure if any dependencies do, but thought that not.

# file /opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer
/opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer: Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64

@fskale
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fskale commented May 16, 2024

Does this require rosetta?

Hm, the remote-viewer itself doesn't require Rosetta if you're using brew for arm. Not sure if any dependencies do, but thought that not.

# file /opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer
/opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer: Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64

Sidenote.
The thing is, that the homebrew version doesn't support encrypted connections, which are used by OVIRT etc.
So i rebuilt the whole dependecy tree as well as the app itself.
Fyi.

@benjenj
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benjenj commented Jun 28, 2024

I'm using the BETA macOS 15.0, it won't work.
The command virt-viewer pve-spice.vv just gave me errors
(remote-viewer:54950): virt-viewer-WARNING **: 02:45:03.484: (../src/virt-viewer-window.c:831):accel_key_to_keys: runtime check failed: ((accel_mods & ~(GDK_SHIFT_MASK | GDK_CONTROL_MASK | GDK_MOD1_MASK)) == 0)
Totally have no idea WTF it is after 10 hours tweaking.

@aanikolaeff
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All works fine on M2MAX except USB redirection. I got error "Could not redirect USB device: could not claim interface 0 (configuration 1): LIBUSB_ERROR_ACCESS (0)"

@fskale
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fskale commented Jul 18, 2024

I'm using the BETA macOS 15.0, it won't work. The command virt-viewer pve-spice.vv just gave me errors (remote-viewer:54950): virt-viewer-WARNING **: 02:45:03.484: (../src/virt-viewer-window.c:831):accel_key_to_keys: runtime check failed: ((accel_mods & ~(GDK_SHIFT_MASK | GDK_CONTROL_MASK | GDK_MOD1_MASK)) == 0) Totally have no idea WTF it is after 10 hours tweaking.

What version of gdk did you build remote-viewer with ?

@falconws
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Thanks very very usefull information

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