Is Proxmox accessible for blind users ?

[magicfab]

Hi,
I have a colleague who is blind impaired, I was wondering if the graphical installer for Proxmox or the recently added feature (text-based installer) are adapted for screen readers or braille display ? Is screen reading possible during graphical install or braille display possible during text install ?
Once installed, is the web UI accessible or screen-reader-friendly ?
I can't seem to find accessibility information or anything specific to this.

Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[gurubert]

After installation Proxmox can be used via WebGUI and CLI in parallel.
The CLI as a text-only interface may be more accessible for a blind person.

 

[magicfab]

@schoeppi would love to hear any findings/feedback since you last poste here.

 

[t.lamprecht]

I have a colleague who is blind impaired, I was wondering if the graphical installer for Proxmox or the recently added feature (text-based installer) are adapted for screen readers or braille display ?

The GRUB menu might get some updates and there's no mode for active screen-reading. I think Debian has that, albeit never tried it, and we should look into their implementation.
The terminal based installer will get full serial-console support with the next release, so there one could attach any terminal capable of screen reading.
Maybe you can open some enhancement reports in our bugzilla for this issue? So that we do not lose track of it.
https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/

Once installed, is the web UI accessible or screen-reader-friendly ?

The current framework we use (ExtJS) has some accessibility built-in, but it's sadly not perfect.
One issue is also that our GUI updates automatically relatively often, causing lots of re-readings by any screen reader.
There floated an idea around of making that configurable, like with slower refresh-intervals or to full manual refresh, but not yet implemented, I'm afraid. Here it would be nice to have an enhancement request opened in our bugzilla.

I can't seem to find accessibility information or anything specific to this.

Yes, the docs could improve too here (could be another report against our docs repo, if you don't mind).

 

[schoeppi]

I am blind and I am using Proxmox for several months now and im generaly very happy with it. I've found only a few issues I wasn't able to solve without sighted help.

The installation is not possible currently when using the official Proxmox isos, at least I didn't try. However, if you are installing proxmox into a minimal Debian system, also a blind person will be able to perform a installation. A Debian system can be installed with braille and / or speech output support and after that the additional Proxmox environment can be installed and configured on top of this minimal Debian system. Thats how I've installed my local cluster. If the official Proxmox installer could be enhanced with support for a serial console and if the installer runs in full text mode it should be no problem to use the official Proxmox installation isos in future. I'll try it when serial console support has been added. The clusters we are using at work have been installed by a sighted colleague and after I was able to login via ssh I was able to do the rest, finish the system configuration, add and configure storage, configure the network and so on.

Using the webgui of Proxmox is not very easy with a screen reader. There are elements which are refreshing very ofthen which cause the screen reader to read the whole page again and again. There are screen readers like Jaws for Windows those can ignore that constant refreshes, but then the general layout of the gui is not very screen reader friendly. There are many elements that can be clicked to open contextbased menues but for the screen reader this elmements are not shown as clickable elements, buttons or whatever, so it is like try and error to know where to click. Also the tablebased layout is not easy to read out and to understand with a screen reading software. I will open issues in the proxmox bugtracker for those issues, but all those things are not easy to explain. It would be more easy to show those problems to some proxmox staff members via a remote session maybe... I've tried all screen reader and browser combination withouth success, including Safari, Firefox and Brave on Mac OS with the VoiceOver screen reader, Firefox, Edge and Brave on Windows with the Jaws and NVDA screen readers and Firefox and Brave on Linux with the orca screen reading software.

But the webgui is not needed in most situation and thats a very big advantage of Proxmox which I do like very much. Most tasks can be performed via command line tools and thats how I do my daily work on our Proxmox enviroments... I've created full automated Linux VM setup and configuration with cloud init and ansible and I can reconfigure the virtual machines with the qm command line tool. Seting up replication is possible with the pvesr utility and make a VM higly available can be done via the ha-manage tool. It is also no problem to add or remove nodes to / from a cluster on the command line, update a cluster and so on. And if the VMs are installed with support for a serial console it is also no problem to jump inside a running VM on the cluster and work inside this VM with the screen reader.

I had only one bigger issue last week where I was not able to migrate a VM from one node to another because the VM was configured to mount a CDROM and this CDROM was not present on the target node. My sighted colleague saw the error message of the failing mount during the migration in the webgui, but I was not able to find the error on the console and the VMs configuration looked OK for me, no hint that the ide2 device for the VM was configured as a CDROM and not the usual cloud init iso.

So in general, yes, a blind person can work with a Proxmox cluster allthough the webgui is not very accessible. There is only help needed during the initial cluster setup or if a new node needs to be added to the cluster and this new node has to be installed. If you install Proxmox on top of a minimal Debian system the cluster setup can even be performed fully without sighted help as long as it is possible to work via serial console with the server hardware or as long a braille device can be connected to the server e.g. via USB. I am using Debian Testing with brltty as the driver for my brailledevice and orca as the screen reading software for my daily work and I do most tasks via ssh. And as long as Proxmox will allow to perform all tasks via command line tools or via the API or the pvesh command line utility it will be no problem to use Proxmox also as a blind person. So please, Proxmox people, don't drop command line support and make it possible to perform all tasks also via command line tools or at least the API, that would be the biggest accessibility support and even better then a webbased administration environment only...

magicfab

 

[schoeppi]

magicfab

If you have more questions or if your blind colleague wants to contact me for more details, please let me know.,,,

 

[t.lamprecht]

Many thanks for your detailed feedback, this is hugely appreciated.

We just released Proxmox VE 8.1 and that release includes serial console support.
We tested it with doing installations with only a serial console port attached, both virtual with using the "qm terminal" command, but also using the IPMI serial console (those are quite buggy) and also some USB serial dongles, while that worked OK I'm not fully sure if the current terminal user interface is very accessible, as it's one of those ncurses like UIs, not a very simple text-prompt interface.

You write that it's in general hard to get accessibility, or well screen reader support, right for the table-based layout, what layout do you think would be better - maybe you got some example projects, as describing such things might a bit hard to do, as you say yourself.

I had only one bigger issue last week where I was not able to migrate a VM from one node to another because the VM was configured to mount a CDROM and this CDROM was not present on the target node. My sighted colleague saw the error message of the failing mount during the migration in the webgui, but I was not able to find the error on the console and the VMs configuration looked OK for me, no hint that the ide2 device for the VM was configured as a CDROM and not the usual cloud init iso.

Ok, good to know, having a report in our Bugzilla could be nice, maybe we can improve error reporting for such things on the console.

So please, Proxmox people, don't drop command line support and make it possible to perform all tasks also via command line tools or at least the API, that would be the biggest accessibility support and even better then a webbased administration environment only...

OK, we certainly won't deprecate command line support, most of our developers are prolific CLI users, and some even have to be dragged kicking and screaming to add support for a new feature in the web-based interface.

 

[LnxBil]

some even have to be dragged kicking and screaming to add support for a new feature in the web-based interface.

I can relate! Would be great to see you guys again (maybe this?).