Support NoVNC clipboard copy paste feature.

[a180285]

I use noVNC html version to connect to kubevirt VM.

And when I connect to Windows VM. Is there any way to support noVNC copy paste feature?

[victortoso]

QEMU VNC's server supports clipboard since v6.1.0 and with libvirt that should be possible since v8.4.0.

As far as I understand, based on a quick read of Gerd's qemu-cut-paste, QEMU will use SPICE's guest-agent (spice-vdagent) for the actual clipboard delivery to the Guest. This should work fine with a Windows VM, but user's will need to install it.

So, to sum up:

1. Add a libvirt change to enable QEMU passing clipboard content from VNC server to the Guest
2. Installing SPICE guest agent in the Guest
3. Using a VNC client that supports copy paste, I'm not at all familiar with noVNC but I believe you that it has this feature.

I can make the patches and test this when time allows it.

[kubevirt-bot]

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity. Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle stale. Stale issues rot after an additional 30d of inactivity and eventually close.

If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close.

/lifecycle stale

[kubevirt-bot]

Stale issues rot after 30d of inactivity. Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle rotten. Rotten issues close after an additional 30d of inactivity.

If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close.

/lifecycle rotten

[oreillymj]

Hi @victortoso ,

I'm wondering was there ever any progress made on this issue. I'm specifically interested in Add a libvirt change to enable QEMU passing clipboard content from VNC server to the Guest

Is that a code change or libvirt config?

[a180285]

BTW, linux guest copy paste is also welcome. We just use send key as a workaround.

If there is any native support. It's much better.

[victortoso]

I'm wondering was there ever any progress made on this issue.

@oreillymj, No, but thanks for the ping. I'll give it a try this week.

Is that a code change or libvirt config?

Libvirt needs extra configuration, yes. Should be something like

  <channel type='qemu-vdagent'>
    <target type='virtio' name='com.redhat.spice.0'/>
    <source>
      <clipboard copypaste='yes'/>
      <mouse mode='client'/>
    </source>
  </channel>

Some more info in the commit libvirt@05b09f03

[victortoso]

If there is any native support. It's much better.

@a180285 , what do you define as native support?

[victortoso]

So, https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/pull/10971 implements the necessary bits in KubeVirt to allow for vnc clipboard to work. The problem is that QEMU does not support live migration of the qemu-vdagent channel, see qemu!1380.

For the moment, I'm marking the PR as Draft and we should wait for QEMU developers to add support for migration.

[victortoso]

Hi, I plan to iterate over #10971 again. There are a couple of features in KubeVirt that causes the VM to be not migratable, so there is room for this feature I think. It'll need to be disabled by default.

In the meanwhile, I tested this with sidecars and it works as well. If you are trying sidecars for the first time, please give it a look to this https://github.com/kubevirt/user-guide/pull/751 where @dharmit is including related documentation to the user-guide. You can also give suggestions/feedback :)

1. Enable Sidecar featureGates
2. Add this configmap: clipboard-configmap.yam, it adds the necessary changes to libvirt
3. Add the following annotation to your VMI

metadata:
  annotations:
    hooks.kubevirt.io/hookSidecars: '[{"args": ["--version", "v1alpha3"], "image":"kubevirt/sidecar-shim:20240108_99b6c4bdb",
          "configMap": {"name": "clipboard-configmap","key": "my_script.sh", "hookPath": "/usr/bin/onDefineDomain"}}]'

[victortoso]

KubeVirt's VNC talks with QEMU VNC server and the support for clipboard there relies on SPICE guest agent to deliver the clipboard data to the Guest. Relying on SPICE is not something we would like to encourage our users to do.

I'd suggest closing the issue as there is nothing we can do in KubeVirt to solve it. Users can, from KubeVirt v1.2.0 and forward, use the sidecar suggestion in my previous comment if they want.

[fabiand]

Something to add is: Or teach qemu-ga to support this clippboard protocol as well.

[kubevirt-bot]

Rotten issues close after 30d of inactivity. Reopen the issue with /reopen. Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle rotten.

/close

[kubevirt-bot]

@kubevirt-bot: Closing this issue.

In response to [this](https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/issues/10306#issuecomment-1951342304): >Rotten issues close after 30d of inactivity. >Reopen the issue with `/reopen`. >Mark the issue as fresh with `/remove-lifecycle rotten`. > >/close Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available [here](https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide/pull-requests.md). If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the [kubernetes/test-infra](https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/issues/new?title=Prow%20issue:) repository.