[Solved] Locating the VNC Server on Unraid to Allow Clipboard


krone6

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Unraid doesn't include vnc AFAIK

 

Oh, what does unraid use for the remote viewing on the VMs then? I see "VNC Remote" in the title and assumed it used VNC.

VMs make use of VNC for remote graphics. The VNC client built into unRAID is noVNC which is an HTML5 VNC client that lets folks connect to a VNC session on unRAID directly through the webgui using nothing but a browser.  The VNC server used to make this possible isn't currently configurable, and copy / paste operations from inside a guest to the client you are connecting from (and vice versa) is not supported.

 

"But Jon, why?"

 

So glad you asked ;-).  In a traditional VNC setup, you would install the VNC server inside the operating system that you wish to connect to (say for example, your Windows desktop).  Because the server is running directly within the OS you are connecting to, it can grab clipboard data directly and support what you are trying to do.  With VMs, we are not installing the VNC server inside the guest OS.  Instead, its installed on the host OS, then the framebuffer is output from a virtual graphics device inside the guest to a VNC server on the host.  That graphical data does not include things like clipboard data. That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

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Unraid doesn't include vnc AFAIK

 

Oh, what does unraid use for the remote viewing on the VMs then? I see "VNC Remote" in the title and assumed it used VNC.

VMs make use of VNC for remote graphics. The VNC client built into unRAID is noVNC which is an HTML5 VNC client that lets folks connect to a VNC session on unRAID directly through the webgui using nothing but a browser.  The VNC server used to make this possible isn't currently configurable, and copy / paste operations from inside a guest to the client you are connecting from (and vice versa) is not supported.

 

"But Jon, why?"

 

So glad you asked ;-).  In a traditional VNC setup, you would install the VNC server inside the operating system that you wish to connect to (say for example, your Windows desktop).  Because the server is running directly within the OS you are connecting to, it can grab clipboard data directly and support what you are trying to do.  With VMs, we are not installing the VNC server inside the guest OS.  Instead, its installed on the host OS, then the framebuffer is output from a virtual graphics device inside the guest to a VNC server on the host.  That graphical data does not include things like clipboard data. That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

 

Thanks, that helps a lot. No wonder I was unable to find anything about a configuration file for vnc remote.

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Unraid doesn't include vnc AFAIK

 

Oh, what does unraid use for the remote viewing on the VMs then? I see "VNC Remote" in the title and assumed it used VNC.

VMs make use of VNC for remote graphics. The VNC client built into unRAID is noVNC which is an HTML5 VNC client that lets folks connect to a VNC session on unRAID directly through the webgui using nothing but a browser.  The VNC server used to make this possible isn't currently configurable, and copy / paste operations from inside a guest to the client you are connecting from (and vice versa) is not supported.

 

"But Jon, why?"

 

So glad you asked ;-).  In a traditional VNC setup, you would install the VNC server inside the operating system that you wish to connect to (say for example, your Windows desktop).  Because the server is running directly within the OS you are connecting to, it can grab clipboard data directly and support what you are trying to do.  With VMs, we are not installing the VNC server inside the guest OS.  Instead, its installed on the host OS, then the framebuffer is output from a virtual graphics device inside the guest to a VNC server on the host.  That graphical data does not include things like clipboard data. That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

 

Thanks, that helps a lot. No wonder I was unable to find anything about a configuration file for vnc remote.

Just an FYI, you could install a VNC server inside the VM and then copy/paste would work fine.

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Unraid doesn't include vnc AFAIK

 

Oh, what does unraid use for the remote viewing on the VMs then? I see "VNC Remote" in the title and assumed it used VNC.

VMs make use of VNC for remote graphics. The VNC client built into unRAID is noVNC which is an HTML5 VNC client that lets folks connect to a VNC session on unRAID directly through the webgui using nothing but a browser.  The VNC server used to make this possible isn't currently configurable, and copy / paste operations from inside a guest to the client you are connecting from (and vice versa) is not supported.

 

"But Jon, why?"

 

So glad you asked ;-).  In a traditional VNC setup, you would install the VNC server inside the operating system that you wish to connect to (say for example, your Windows desktop).  Because the server is running directly within the OS you are connecting to, it can grab clipboard data directly and support what you are trying to do.  With VMs, we are not installing the VNC server inside the guest OS.  Instead, its installed on the host OS, then the framebuffer is output from a virtual graphics device inside the guest to a VNC server on the host.  That graphical data does not include things like clipboard data. That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

 

Thanks, that helps a lot. No wonder I was unable to find anything about a configuration file for vnc remote.

Just an FYI, you could install a VNC server inside the VM and then copy/paste would work fine.

 

Thanks, that's how I was going to do it to get around the current system for now.

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Thought it was worth mentioning that if the VM supports it then RDP (Remote Desktop) provides much better performance than VNC server installed in the VM..

Yes, but it does require that you have a Windows Professional license (Home edition doesn't get RDP).

I guess I have always had a Pro license as I took advantage of cheap upgrade offers where I could get the Pro license for less than the price of the Home license so was the sensible thing to do.

 

I believe that it is possible to do a 'hack' to the Home version to get RDP enabled, but that is not really the right point to discuss here.

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  • 4 years later...

Solution in Windows without using RDP or other VNC software:

1. ) Install AutoHotKey

2.) Right click on desktop -> create AutoHotKey script

3.) Edit script and paste:

^+v::Send {Raw}%Clipboard%

4.) Doube-click the script

5.) Now you can use CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste anything in the noVNC browser window (its typing the chars that are in the clipboard)

 

Paste the script in the windows startup folder so its automatically executed on reboot:

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/FAQ.htm#Startup

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/21/2015 at 3:49 AM, jonp said:

That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

Hi Jon.

 

Has this progressed any futher with support for Copy/Paste?  

 

My use case is a Windows VM on Unraid (KVM Back end) where the guest is then connected to a work VPN via checkpoint secure client.  Checkpoint doesnt allow any local network connectivity after the VPN is established.  I'm using Quacamole to access the Guest Via KVM VNC but no copy/paste means I need to kill the VPN everytime I want to copy/paste.

A possible solution is to run VirtualBox locally but I'm trying to keep load off my laptop.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/12/2020 at 11:51 AM, mgutt said:

Solution in Windows without using RDP or other VNC software:

1. ) Install AutoHotKey

2.) Right click on desktop -> create AutoHotKey script

3.) Edit script and paste:


^+v::Send {Raw}%Clipboard%

4.) Doube-click the script

5.) Now you can use CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste anything in the noVNC browser window (its typing the chars that are in the clipboard)

 

Paste the script in the windows startup folder so its automatically executed on reboot:

https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/FAQ.htm#Startup

Doesn't work...

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On 9/20/2015 at 12:49 PM, jonp said:

VMs make use of VNC for remote graphics. The VNC client built into unRAID is noVNC which is an HTML5 VNC client that lets folks connect to a VNC session on unRAID directly through the webgui using nothing but a browser.  The VNC server used to make this possible isn't currently configurable, and copy / paste operations from inside a guest to the client you are connecting from (and vice versa) is not supported.

 

"But Jon, why?"

 

So glad you asked ;-).  In a traditional VNC setup, you would install the VNC server inside the operating system that you wish to connect to (say for example, your Windows desktop).  Because the server is running directly within the OS you are connecting to, it can grab clipboard data directly and support what you are trying to do.  With VMs, we are not installing the VNC server inside the guest OS.  Instead, its installed on the host OS, then the framebuffer is output from a virtual graphics device inside the guest to a VNC server on the host.  That graphical data does not include things like clipboard data. That said, there are plans for the future to support this using an alternative remote graphics method and setup would require a companion software to be loaded inside the guest to make this work.

 

Is there any particular reason we can't implement SPICE for video, with the OpenGL Acceleration (Spice works when manually enabled, but the GL stuff isn't compiled in on Unraid - or at least virt-manager claims it isn't)
Spice supports dynamic resolution, audio, USB redirection and clipboard integration in the guest with drivers unlike the VNC Implementation for KVM. And there's already spice web clients (though they do have some limitations, like not supporting celt audio or USB redirection)
 

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6 hours ago, jowi said:

Yes. I could not get it to work... shft ctrl v just pasts the content of the actual local clipboard, not the vnc menu clipboard.

So it works as expected. Autohotkey is only active on your host pc and by that it can not access anything in the clipboard of the VM.

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On 6/29/2020 at 4:24 AM, isaw said:

Hi Jon.

 

Has this progressed any futher with support for Copy/Paste?  

 

My use case is a Windows VM on Unraid (KVM Back end) where the guest is then connected to a work VPN via checkpoint secure client.  Checkpoint doesnt allow any local network connectivity after the VPN is established.  I'm using Quacamole to access the Guest Via KVM VNC but no copy/paste means I need to kill the VPN everytime I want to copy/paste.

A possible solution is to run VirtualBox locally but I'm trying to keep load off my laptop.

may as tip as im in the same boat, i was testing around and in the end im using anydesk for this use case, pretty decent performance and copy, paste ... working. also chrome remote desktop is working behind checkpoint. sadly rdp or native vnc aint ... without IT support to open access.

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10 hours ago, mgutt said:

So it works as expected. Autohotkey is only active on your host pc and by that it can not access anything in the clipboard of the VM.

Ok... so autohotkey is NOT a solution to the actual problem, which is how do you copy data/text from the host TO the (Windows)/VM and paste it IN the (Windows) VM. 

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  • 4 months later...

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