Re: [Xen-users] Host/guest clipboard?

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Kris,

> Thanks for the reply Jim. I guess it is possible (if necessary) to run a
> separate vnc server or other remote desktop tool on a guest OS. However, I
> would really prefer, if possible, to connect to the built-in dom0 ip VNC
> (I'm using Xen-3.1.2-2.fc8 and libvirt-0.4.2-1.fc8 -- I remember reading
> that qemu-dm is the newer of the techniques, so I assume that's what mine
> is using. But I don't know). Does the dom0 VNC just not support clipboard
> passing, and not have _any_ way of changing this setting to allow it? If
> there is a way to get this working, I would really an explanation of what I
> need to do.

Dom0 VNC doesn't support clipboard passing and that can't be easily fixed.  
This is for technical reasons, rather than just configuration:

Dom0 emulating a graphics card, which the guest is writing to.  Dom0 is 
exporting the graphics card's framebuffer over the network using VNC.  This 
is different to the usual scenario for VNC, where you run the VNC server 
*within* the guest.  Since dom0 only has access to the framebuffer, it can 
only export what's there.  This doesn't include the clipboard state, so dom0 
can't access it.  The difference is that if you are running (as is often the 
case) a VNC server *within* the guest OS, it has direct software access to 
the clipboard.

To make clipboard sharing work with the dom0 VNC server would be a much more 
elaborate problem than making it work with a conventional VNC server and 
would require the guest to have custom drivers created and installed.  This 
could be done in principle but hasn't yet for Xen.  Some other systems do 
support this, such as VMware or VirtualBox, if you install their special 
drivers within the guest.

So, sorry but there's not a way to do this with the dom0 VNC server for the 
time being.  Exporting the display using rdesktop or an in-guest VNC server 
(or X over SSH or FreeNX, if your guest is Linux) will give you this feature 
under Xen if you really must have it.

You may also be able to get a VNC viewer that will allow you to paste text 
into the guest from dom0, since that could be done by just injecting keypress 
events.

Cheers,
Mark

> Regards,
>
> Kris
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:21 AM, jim burns <jim_burn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Tuesday June 17 2008 05:59:08 pm Kris Adler wrote:
> > > I'm trying to get copy/paste/cut working between my Xen host (FC8 64)
> > > and guest OSs (Centos 5.1, Windows 2000). I've tried the viewer in
> > > virt-manager, virt-viewer, and vncviewer. None of them seem to transfer
> > > clipboard contents between host and guest, even with both clipboard
> > > checkboxes selected in vncviewer options. Does anyone know how to get
> >
> > this
> >
> > > working? Thanks.
> >
> > Clipboard depends on the server you are connecting to. vncviewer from
> > tightvnc
> > passes the clipboard very well if you are using tightvnc server on the
> > guest,
> > instead of connecting to the dom0 ip (based on qemu-dm or xen-vncfb). For
> > hvm
> > domus, this can be very slow, However, for Windows, rdesktop is very good
> > at
> > passing the clipboard (among other things).
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users



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