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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
@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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