Xen project Mailing List

Hardware KVM cost money and also takes space. Don't want.

Synergy seems to be quite useful, but not exactly for my purpose. Before using Xen, I had both Monitors in Windows and they worked with Extended Desktop, which is the same that what Synergy seems to do, but across different VMs/physical machines. While that could take care of switching input from what its on one Monitor to the other, it still has the issue that I need a way to choose what VM screen to bring to front in the Monitor that Dom0 uses so I can see it, because multiples VMs will use that Monitor. I don't expect Synergy to automatically figure out that there is a new Desktop surface on top from another VM. Would work seamlessly if I had one fixed Monitor per VMs, but that's not my case.

So far, regarding my original proposal, if I open another tty, I can use startx to launch an even more basic version of this:
http://pconstantino.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/startx.png
Just thatit looks like on a very fresh X.org install without Windows Managers or anything, as the three white consoles don't have the window header. I can close two of them using exit command, and on the last one I can use use xl create to open a VM in there. While this comes extremely close to accomplish what I want because I can then switch back to Dom0 with Alt + Ctrl + F1, the input on the tty2 VM is extremely buggy, because the Mouse doesn't seem to stick inside the VM and instead I have the default X.org cursor, as if the VM wasn't the active window. Also, the Enter key inside the VM doesn't work for some reason that I can't figure, through other keys like the Windows key and Arrows key do (So I can at least navigate the Start Menu, even through I can't do anything else due lack of both Enter key and functional Mouse). I suppose that I would need to tinker a bit with X.org configuration to see if I can fix the input issue and possibly I will have to install a Window Manager.

There is A BIG exception: The VM with VGA Passthrough. If using SDL, by default, there is a window created where the VM BIOS and Windows XP splash screen kicks in (Which is the content while it boots of the black window in the screenshot of the previous E-Mail), and I get video output on the other Monitor after the GPU Drivers loads. This one would need something a bit more special, like a shortcut that just changes to that VM as the active window so I get input on the VM, but doesn't replace the VM that I'm seeing in the other Monitor with a black screen. Point is, the black SDL surface needs to be somehow hide or destroyed, yet have a way to switch to the other VM.
If I can solve both things, this would pretty much be the solution I want.

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So, I've tackled similar problems in one of two ways.

Currently I'm using a hardware KVM, with only the keyboard and mouse connected - that way I can switch from one system to another with the push of a button (actually I also have a laptop hooked up as well, as its a 4 port KVM) - I have a dedicated USB 3.0 card passed through to the domU so it has its own USB ports available for the keyboard and mouse.

Another way I've done this kind of thing in the past was to use a keyboard/mouse sharing application (basically a software KVM), such as synergy2 or multiplicity (back when there was a free version). Its a small utility that you install on each of the computers (theres clients for both Linux and Windows) and you designate one machine as the master (thats where your keyboard and mouse are connected). The utility then detects when the mouse cursor is reaching the side of the screen, and passes the inputs over to the next screen, basically giving the impression of one giant desktop split across several screens and computers.

Regards,

David

Re: [Xen-users] Switching between multiple VMs with shared input (One Keyboard + Mouse)