Copy/Paste Not working macOS Host to Guest Monterey VM from Apple Silicon Laptop

[pauljrob]

Describe the issue Copy and paste is not working between the host and the guest. Is this expected behavior or is there something additional that needs to be enabled?

Configuration

• UTM Version: 3.0.4
• OS Version: Monterey
• Intel or Apple Silicon? Apple Silicon

[adespoton]

From Parallels Desktop notes:

Productivity and integration features are not available to this VM yet. It is not possible to suspend and resume the VM, shared folders and snapshots are not supported for now. Apart from that it is currently not possible to adjust guest macOS screen resolution in real-time mode when resizing ratio; to change virtual machine amount of CPU and RAM or its hardware parameters (Device UUID and Serial number) and to register with Apple ID. USB and camera sharing are also missing in macOS Monterey VM running on a Mac with Apple M1 chips so far.

Parallels Engineering Team is researching ways to expand the list of supported features in future product updates. Shared Clipboard has already been added. To enable this feature make sure Parallels Tools are installed and up-to-date.

So, it looks to me like shared clipboard is possible, but requires adding something inside the guest VM and supporting it through the VM framework.

Anyone not connected with UTM development want to have a look at what Parallels is doing and describe it in broad terms? Might be usable inside x86_64 macOS VMs too. Or someone figuring out SPICE integration for macOS.

[niklr]

That's the only thing preventing me from using a Monterey VM on Apple Silicon right now.

[protectmango]

That's the only thing preventing me from using a Monterey VM on Apple Silicon right now.

Hello : Giving you a short help use command + c to copy thing from mac os also for M1 mac also . and then use control(^) + shift + V to copy it in UTM

[flotpg]

@protectmango hi, this doesn't work for me on macOS M1 Max with 3.1.5 and macOS Monterey guest VM

[adespoton]

@protectmango

hi, this doesn't work for me on macOS M1 Max with 3.1.5 and macOS Monterey guest VM

You may want to update to 3.2.1?

[flotpg]

@adespoton: i already looked for the beta 3.2.1, but I can't find the download links on the releases page...

[adespoton]

https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/releases

-Em

On May 8, 2022, at 10:44 AM, flotpg @.***> wrote:

 @adespoton: i already looked for it, but I can't find the download links on the releases page...

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[flotpg]

None of the beta releases have assets attached (no links to dmg, etc).

[osy]

Uhhh have you tried clicking on the word “Assets”

[flotpg]

Ahh, too blind. For stable releases the assets are expanded. Betas are collapsed. Found it and will try, many thanks.

[flotpg]

control(^) + shift + V not working for me with Monterey guest on apple silicon host running UTM 3.2.2

[jonathanlaniado]

Not working for me either. I'm on 3.2.4.

[mikiquantum]

Same here, on version 3.2.4.

[protectmango]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2fEUnk5io0&t=231s Bro Watch this dude video it will definitely solve all your problems

On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 4:33 AM Miguel Hervas @.***> wrote:

Same here, on version 3.2.4.

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[m4rc0g]

For me worked install on Kali Virtual sudo apt install spice-vdagent spice-webdavd and enable clipboard sharing from settings. Restart UTM and Kali to make changes work.

[jjcfrancisco]

It does not seem to work if only terminal i.e. Ubuntu Server.

[Sherry112]

Not working for me as well.

[ahrenstein]

For Monterey hosts and Monterey guests you can use a bit of hacky workaround: Apple Remote Desktop. It allows you to copy the clipboard to to/from the guest and you can also drag and drop files to the remote window to transfer files to the VM.

[jonathanlaniado]

@ahrenstein, interesting, can you expand on that further? How do you set this up?

[jd6-37]

For Monterey hosts and Monterey guests you can use a bit of hacky workaround: Apple Remote Desktop. It allows you to copy the clipboard to to/from the guest and you can also drag and drop files to the remote window to transfer files to the VM.

Wow. This is genius. Seriously, thank you. What a brilliantly simple solution to use the Screen Sharing app. It even enabled the touchpad pinch-to-zoom functionality in Photoshop, which I was sorely missing. Thank you!

[jonathanlaniado]

Oh man now I really feel left out. Anybody care to be kind enough to explain how to set that up?

Edit: I guess I'm curious if you're able to connect to the VM via ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) offline or if you need to have UTM and ARD running side-by-side with an Internet connection.

[jd6-37]

Oh man now I really feel left out. Anybody care to be kind enough to explain how to set that up?

Edit: I guess I'm curious if you're able to connect to the VM via ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) offline or if you need to have UTM and ARD running side-by-side with an Internet connection.

Start the VM (yes it needs to be running side-by-side). In the VM, enable Screen Sharing in Preferences-->Screen Sharing. Then on your host mac, open the default Screen Sharing app, and connect to the VM's IP address.

I also have File Sharing in the VM enabled so I can mount it as a remote drive in my host, but you can drag and drop from host to guest (and vice versa) with the Screen Sharing app.

[ahrenstein]

@jonathanlaniado In the guest macOS under System Preferences > Sharing enable either "Remote Management" or "Screen Sharing" I use the former since I own a copy of ARD Then you can just use ARD or Screen Sharing to access the IP address of the VM from your host. In my case last night it was 192.168.64.2 although you can find your IP in the Network settings.

@j26w I'm glad I could help!

[adespoton]

No need to even find the IP address. With Remote Access enabled on the guest, the guest should show up in the Locations list on the host’s Finder sidebar. Select it and click Share Screen… and you’re connected.

Do we have a way to run VMs headless by default in UTM now? Because UTM itself could be used to use the share screen feature for screen display if the option is enabled on the guest and the feature was added to UTM.

-Em

On Aug 31, 2022, at 10:44 AM, Matthew Ahrenstein @.***> wrote:

 @jonathanlaniado In the guest macOS under System Preferences > Sharing enable either "Remote Management" or "Screen Sharing" I use the former since I own a copy of ARD Then you can just use ARD or Screen Sharing to access the IP address of the VM from your host. In my case last night it was 192.168.64.2 although you can find your IP in the Network settings.

@j26w I'm glad I could help!

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[patniemeyer]

I agree that on Mac screen sharing is a much smoother and better experience than the native display. I also wish there were an option to just start UTM headless and launch screen sharing for the UI.

[nklsw]

Are there other workarounds for a shared clipboard? It's working with remote access, but I'm not happy with graphic performance.

[BenJackGill]

Incase you have trouble doing the screen share trick, follow these steps:

On the Guest machine (the UTM virtual machine):

1. Open System Settings > General > Sharing
2. Turn on Screen Sharing
3. Click the "i" symbol next to Screen Sharing and change "Allow Access" to "All Users"

On the Host Machine (your real computer):

1. Open Finder
2. In the left sidebar under "Locations" click the "Network" tab
3. You will see your virtual machine in there. It will be named something like "[NAME]'s Virtual Machine". Right click on it and select "Screen Share"
4. Input the Username and Password for your Guest machine

At this point will have two windows open for interacting with the Guest machine:

• The UTM window - it will be named whatever you called the UTM machine when you created it
• The Screen Share window - it will be named "[NAME]'s Virtual Machine"

Use the Screen Share window as your main window for interacting with the Guest desktop. You'll be able to move files and copy/paste between the host and guest machines easily.

The other UTM window needs to remain open because closing it will shut down the guest machine. I just minimize it to avoid confusion.

[guycalledseven]

Running UTM Version 4.2.5 (81), on macOS Ventura 13.4.1 (22F82), VM is Linux 6.1.0-kali9-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 6.1.27-1kali1 (2023-05-12) aarch64 GNU/Linux.

I have configured folder/clipboard sharing in UTM and have spice-vdagent spice-webdavd installed.

In UTM in VM settings if under Display I select virtio-ramfb - copy paste works.

If I select virtio-ramfb-gl (GPU Supported) - copy paste does not work.

But not even that works every time. When it does not work, after couple of VM reboots, it eventually starts working.

I tried restarting spice* services in VM but nothing helped.

[hairer]

Anyone not connected with UTM development want to have a look at what Parallels is doing and describe it in broad terms? Might be usable inside x86_64 macOS VMs too. Or someone figuring out SPICE integration for macOS.

I am not very familiar with VM development, but isn't this precisely what's needed, at least on Ventura?

[jzmail]

For text, you can take a screenshot of what you want to copy (Shift, Command, and 4 to capture a portion of the screen) in the VM. Then right click on the thumbnail in the corner of your screen and choose Markup, and copy the text. It's now in your Clipboard to paste wherever you want.

[zakkg3]

if you installed the spice agent, as mentioned in documentation https://docs.getutm.app/guest-support/linux/#spice-agent and it does not work. Close at all UTM and reopen. That worked for me.

[ramj9]

Documentation says it only works on Linux guests : https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5409

I wonder if anybody tried compiling spice-vdagent on mac with any success?

[godblesslancek]

Thanks to this issue , I was able to find a solution, for guest Vanilla Ubuntu 22 ARM64 guest, Host Macbook Pro M1 2021

The trick was to install ubuntu-gnome-desktop over a vanilla Ubuntu ARM64 VM the clipboard now works when doing Ctrl^+Maj+V .

What worked for me Enable "Clipboard sharing" sudo apt install ubuntu-gnome-desktop reboot

What didn't work for me Enable "Clipboard sharing" sudo apt install spice-vdagent reboot

Not sure why installing gnome desktop environment did the trick, though.

[mig8447]

@godblesslancek This issue in particular has nothing to do with Ubuntu

[adespoton]

How does that work?  Guest is macOS 12.  SPICE is still just for Linux and Windows isn’t it?  Or did someone succeed in compiling a version that works with macOS?My solution is currently to use screen sharing between the host and guest and run the guest headless; screen sharing includes a shared clipboard and file transfer.On Dec 21, 2023, at 5:17 AM, azeer-esmail @.***> wrote: installing SPICE Agent, QEMU Agent and SPICE WebDAV on the guest worked for me: linux windows

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[azeer-esmail]

How does that work?  Guest is macOS 12.  SPICE is still just for Linux and Windows isn’t it?  Or did someone succeed in compiling a version that works with macOS?My solution is currently to use screen sharing between the host and guest and run the guest headless; screen sharing includes a shared clipboard and file transfer.On Dec 21, 2023, at 5:17 AM, azeer-esmail @.> wrote: installing SPICE Agent, QEMU Agent and SPICE WebDAV on the guest worked for me: linux windows —Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.>

my bad didn't see that guest is macOS as well.

[mbwmbw1337]

Incase you have trouble doing the screen share trick, follow these steps:

On the Guest machine (the UTM virtual machine):

1. Open System Settings > General > Sharing
2. Turn on Screen Sharing
3. Click the "i" symbol next to Screen Sharing and change "Allow Access" to "All Users"

On the Host Machine (your real computer):

1. Open Finder
2. In the left sidebar under "Locations" click the "Network" tab
3. You will see your virtual machine in there. It will be named something like "[NAME]'s Virtual Machine". Right click on it and select "Screen Share"
4. Input the Username and Password for your Guest machine

At this point will have two windows open for interacting with the Guest machine:

• The UTM window - it will be named whatever you called the UTM machine when you created it
• The Screen Share window - it will be named "[NAME]'s Virtual Machine"

Use the Screen Share window as your main window for interacting with the Guest desktop. You'll be able to move files and copy/paste between the host and guest machines easily.

The other UTM window needs to remain open because closing it will shut down the guest machine. I just minimize it to avoid confusion.

Thank you for this!

[josfaber]

Seeing all sorts of answers for users with desktop environments in their vm's. I'm having a clean Debian server installed via netinstaller, not ready for ssh or remote yet. I just like to copy/paste simple commands or urls between my mac and Debian terminal running in utm. Is that even possible? I installed spice-vdagent and spice-webdavd

[Crown0815]

Seeing all sorts of answers for users with desktop environments in their vm's. I'm having a clean Debian server installed via netinstaller, not ready for ssh or remote yet. I just like to copy/paste simple commands or urls between my mac and Debian terminal running in utm. Is that even possible? I installed spice-vdagent and spice-webdavd

Same issue here (Ubuntu Server). I just want to paste commands into the terminal, but nothing seems to work.

[kmatheussen]

Seeing all sorts of answers for users with desktop environments in their vm's. I'm having a clean Debian server installed via netinstaller, not ready for ssh or remote yet. I just like to copy/paste simple commands or urls between my mac and Debian terminal running in utm. Is that even possible? I installed spice-vdagent and spice-webdavd

Same issue here (Ubuntu Server). I just want to paste commands into the terminal, but nothing seems to work.

Not related to the ticket, but I'll answer anyway (it's been answered many times in other threads already). Trick is, at least for me and a few others, is to run the spice-vdagent command as your own user (not as root).

[Crown0815]

@kmatheussen, thank you for the tip. Unfortunately, running the spice-vdagent command did not change anything. Neither [CMD] + [V], nor [CTRL] + [V], nor [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [V] paste previously copied text into the terminal.

[kmatheussen]

On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 2:35 PM Felix Kröner @.***> wrote:

@kmatheussen https://github.com/kmatheussen, thank you for the tip. Unfortunately, running the spice-vdagent command did not change anything. Neither [CMD] + [V], nor [CTRL] + [V], nor [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [V] paste previously copied text into the terminal.

Maybe you're not running X? (I have no idea if that is required, but maybe it is)

Message ID: @.***>

[Crown0815]

@kmatheussen That maybe. I am not familiar with it though. What is X and how would I check if I am running it?

[kmatheussen]

Sorry for hijacking your thread. The "X" comment was about making copy-paste working when running a debian client, so it's not relevant for running a mac client. X is the most common GUI system on Linux.

On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 11:23 AM Felix Kröner @.***> wrote:

@kmatheussen https://github.com/kmatheussen That maybe. I am not familiar with it though. What is X and how would I check if I am running it?

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[nashyvan]

Seeing all sorts of answers for users with desktop environments in their vm's. I'm having a clean Debian server installed via netinstaller, not ready for ssh or remote yet. I just like to copy/paste simple commands or urls between my mac and Debian terminal running in utm. Is that even possible? I installed spice-vdagent and spice-webdavd

I installed Debian without DE (Desktop Environment) and WM (Window Manager) and Copy/Paste doesn't work for me either. You need to install Xorg with WM (I use i3):

apt install xorg i3 alacrity
startx

$mod+Return (open default i3-sensible-terminal)

Open config file and make alacritty default terminal:

# vi ~/.config/i3/config
bindsym $mod+Return exec alacritty

Save config file and exit i3 terminal.

$mod+Shift+R (reload i3 config) $mod+Return (open new terminal)

Also make sure you installed SPICE tools and rebooted your system: apt install sudo spice-vdagent spice-webdavd git -y

CTRL + SHIFT + C and CTRL + SHIFT + V is working for me now.