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

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

* Gerd Hoffmann (kraxel@redhat.com) wrote:
>   Hi,
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Well.  Full-blown cut+paste is quite complex.  spice goes all-in and
> supports cut+paste everything both ways.  The minimal thing would be
> host -> guest support for "text/plain; charset=utf-8".  Quick google
> search suggests the vnc protocol supports just that.
> 
> So, what exactly we are talking about?

Yes I saw VNC supports some of this; but consider a qemu started
with -vnc  and it's remotely displaying - I don't think we wire up VNC's
copy/paste in qemu to give anything to the guest, because we've
got nothing in the guest to present it as - which is what I was trying
to add.

> > 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.
> 
> Not that easy I think, the channel is not used exclusively for
> cut+paste but also some other, spice-specific stuff.
> 
> We could try integrate this into qemu guest agent.
> 
> Or use something completely separate.  qemu guest agent works at system
> level whereas cut+paste would work on user session level.  spice solves
> this by having both system and user daemon, where the user daemon talks
> to the system daemon.  With a separate channel you wouldn't need the
> system daemon as middle man 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?
> 
> Guest UI too (you can make the same argument the other way around) if we
> want support guest->host cut+paste.

OK, I was less worried about the host stealing from the guest, since it
normally already can.

Dave

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