Re: [virtio-dev] Re: virtio-input for copy/paste?

["Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <dgilbert@redhat.com>]

* Gerd Hoffmann (kraxel@redhat.com) wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 05:41:13PM +0100, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> > Hi,
> >   Is there anywhere that virtio has where host/guest copy/paste would
> > fit?
> 
> Well, spice supports it, with spice client and spice guest agent talking
> to each other using a virtio-serial channel (guest <-> spice-server) and
> a spice protocol tunnel (spice-server <-> spice-client).

Right; what I was interested in was whether there would be a way to
plumb copy/paste through for a VNC or local Gtk display; the guest view
should be independent of the transport protocol.

Perhaps that way is just to standardise on the virtio-serial channel
that spice already uses and provide that for other transports;
but if not then it feels like there should be some standard.

> You'll need a guest agent anyway, to bridge between window system
> (x11/wayland/...) and device, so running some protocol over a stream
> doesn't look bad to me as design choice.  These days you might choose
> vsock instead (depends on how you design the host side though).
> 
> You also need the agent as user interface, so the user can explicitly
> enable clipboard access for the other side (you don't want do this
> automatically for security reasons: the guest should not be able to
> sniff the passwords which you cut+paste on the host from password
> manager to browser).

That should be on the host side-UI shouldn't it?

> > I don't think it's something we have defined at the moment
> > and I was wondering if virtio-input would be the right place to add it.
> > If the client driver supported the feature then the host would
> > hand it to the client, if it didn't it could insert a string
> > of key events.
> 
> The problem with such a fallback is keyboard maps.  virtio-input sends
> scancodes not keysyms.  Even with us-ascii this is a problem (querty vs.
> quertz), and it doesn't become easier with â Ã Ã Ã and emoji ...

Yeh tricky.

Dave

> take care,
>   Gerd
> 
> 
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-- 
Dr. David Alan Gilbert / dgilbert@redhat.com / Manchester, UK