[vfio-users] Virtual USB Keyboard and Mouse for guest?

[Jonathan Scruggs]

Hi,

Nice to meet others as well. :)

Well, at the moment, I have Synergy set up so that I need a key combination
to switch computers anyways. Synergy allows you to define your own
combination, and I would hope that my idea would allow for the defining of
custom combinations to minimize those types of gotchas. I was also thinking
that usb pass through of a keyboard and mouse would have less latency than
Synergy, but I only want to have one keyboard and mouse on my desktop.
Also, a usb KM switch would take up multiple usb ports instead of just one
or two. A wireless desktop set would have one usb receiver, so it makes a
slick system.

Even if this isn't built into qemu/libvirt/virtmanager, it would still work
as an external program. Virt-manager usb pass through screen would show the
"virtual" keyboard and mouse to pass through to the guest. It's just, I
would have no idea how to do this.

Hope someone can do something like this. :)

Jon

On 1 September 2015 at 03:05, Jonathan Panozzo <jonp at lime-technology.com>
wrote:

> Your request “makes sense” but implementation wouldn’t be simple.  This
> also has nothing to do with VFIO, but rather, QEMU/KVM (I’ll let Alex W
> correct me on that if I’m wrong, but I’m 99% sure I’m right).
>
> Regarding Synergy, there is a way to give Synergy elevated privileges so
> that when UAC pops up in Windows, you can still use the mouse.  I do this
> now and it works pretty good.  Synergy has other issues though, especially
> with applications that normally restrict cursor movement to inside the app
> (think gaming).
>
> Does your idea sound good?  Sure!  But its most definitely something that
> would be a bit complicated to implement.  What “key combination” would be
> ok to restrict on the keyboard to sending a command to the host?  What if a
> guest needs that combination to execute another function?  Lots of
> potential “gotchas” that would need to be considered.
>
> PS:  always a pleasure to meet another Jonathan ;-)
>
> - Jonathan Panozzo
>
> > On Aug 31, 2015, at 1:18 PM, Jonathan Scruggs <j.scruggs at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > This is an idea I had that would be really cool if possible. If it is,
> you may want to somehow build it into VirtManager or something.
> >
> > Currently, I have a Windows guest using Synergy, but somethings Windows
> has popups that disable Synergy and only a real mouse would work. Also, you
> can't update Synergy while using Synergy. My solution which is better than
> Synergy and solves these issues:
> >
> > Would it be possible to have the real mouse and keyboard that is plugged
> into the host to be (this is where I struggle for the right words)
> duplicated/virtualized/emulated so that they can be passed through to the
> guest as a USB device and used on the host system as well. There would be a
> program that listens for a certain key combination that would switch the
> control to either the VM or host. Then windows would think it has a real
> USB keyboard and mouse rather than Synergy. This is especially useful when
> there is a dedicated graphics card passed through.
> >
> > This seems like something that VirtManger can have built in, like select
> an option to do this and it would switch the inputs between the systems.
> The only thing is, is that the mouse and keyboard would still need to be
> visible to the guest/host just no movements/keystrokes being sent. Also,
> calling external programs, like those that can switch monitor inputs should
> be added to this.
> >
> > This will lose the clipboard sharing and other features of Synergy, but
> I don't use those anyways, and this would be a lot more stable and better
> for the guests.
> >
> > Does this make sense?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jon
> > _______________________________________________
> > vfio-users mailing list
> > vfio-users at redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/vfio-users
>
>
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