Proxmox - SPICE Client setup for MacOS

README.md

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

4. In Chrome, click on the small arrow on the list of downloads at the bottom, and select "Always open files of this type"

   

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

   

   

Enjoy!

pve-spice.sh

#!/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

I have been smashing my head into this issue for about two or three days and have yet to find a way to get Spice to connect via MacOS - I have installed the remoteviewer via the homebrew commands listed above but I cannot call remote-viewer with a pve.vv file. I am on an M2 Mac, I've got Pop OS installed on another laptop and that is able to spice into the VMs successfully.
Any ideas before I give up forever?