[SOLVED] Keyboard Issues

[Itze]

Hi everyone,

i have aproblem with my keyboard o na fresh install of proxmox 5.2-1. I set up about 20 Proxmox servers in the past and never had such issues.

The problem: I installed proxmox 5.2-1. Then I created 2 VMs. The first one is a SBS 2011 I converted for a customer, the second VM is a fresh Install of Windows 10 1803. In both VMs, I have Problems logging in to Windows, because the Passwort has an '@' in it. I have a german keyboard layout. So I usually have to press alt gr + q to type an @. But it just prints out the lowercase q. In another forum thread I found that someone else had that problem too, and that pressing the right crtl + alt gr + q would do the trick. And it does. For typing a '\' I usualy have to type alt gr + ß on german keyboard layout. Here, I also have to type ctrl + alt gr + ß now. The strangest thing is now that whenever I use one of these keyboard combinations like ctrl - alt gr - q, I get the character on the screen, but then the keyboards stop working in the console window. I have to close the window and restart the console window to be able to continue writing. The behavior continues when working in Windows and I try to map a network share where I have to type several '\'. I have to close and reopen the console windows each time. again. Well, I could live with this behavior, but my main problem ist with this is, that I have a subnotebook that I use for work and that does not have the right crtl key (it doesn't work with the left crtl key) and that forces me to use the on screen keyboard in windows (which I pretty much hate).

In Datacenter - Options I have set 'Console Viewer - Default (HTML)'. But when I open a console window, of my VM, novnc sems to be used (at least, thats what is printed in the console window).

What I did so far:
- change the keybaord layout in Datacenter - Options from german to german (swiss)
- change the keybaord layout in Datacenter - Options from german to english (USA)
- change the console viewer in Datacenter - Options to novnc
- try ssh via putty on the host: keyboard works as expected
- use chrome browser instead of firefox: same behavior

Keyboard layout in VM options: didn't try yet as the server is in production already and I can't shut the VM down at the moment. The Layout is set to default (which, to my understanding, refers to the option mentioned above).

So, is there anyone else experiencing that problem and has anyone found an explaination or a solution for that?



Best regards,

Itze

 

[t.lamprecht]

In Datacenter - Options I have set 'Console Viewer - Default (HTML)'. But when I open a console window, of my VM, novnc sems to be used (at least, thats what is printed in the console window).

Default (HTML5) is the NoVNC one.

- change the keybaord layout in Datacenter - Options from german to german (swiss)

Have you tried using here "Default" too? AFAIK, this option is a bit outdated today and it's best to let the VM handle it's keyboard settings itself, setting an explicit option (other than default) here may cause even more problems.
Actually we do not pass this option to VMs anymore since qemu-server in version 5.0-24 or newer, do you use an older version?
If you use a newer version I'd check if the correct locale is set in the VM itself...

 

[Itze]

Hi Thomas,

thanks for your answer. I changed the keyboard layout to default, but that did not change anything (or do I have to stop and the start the VM to take effect the change?)

 

[t.lamprecht]

or do I have to stop and the start the VM to take effect the change?

Yes, a full shutdown/stop and new start is needed, as this gets added as option on start in the QEMU command .

 

[Itze]

Sorry, it's been a longer time since I started this thread but today I had the opportunity to shut down one of the VMs and it seems that either one or both of the following things I did resolved the issue:

1. I did an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
2. I changed the keyboard layout on both, the VM and the Datacenter Options to 'German'. Now it works like a charm.

Thanks to all who gave hints on how to resolve the issue! It's much appreciated!

 

[Hans-Willi Werres]

Hello I use Apache Guacamole to connect to the VNC consoles of my VMs.
Last day I saw that the keyboard did not work correctly. The US keyboard layout was used.
First I thougt the problem is located in apache guacamole, but after some tests i found that it was located in proxmox.
After setting the keyboard layout on every VM seperately to german, it worked perfectly.

So ... I had the same problem and the 2nd part resoled it.

I think there must be a bug that the global configuration is not used

 

[t.lamprecht]

I think there must be a bug that the global configuration is not used

It may seem like one for you, but this was actually removed consciously:

https://git.proxmox.com/?p=qemu-server.git;a=commitdiff;h=b20df606a1abdb4d0a7101baee219902452ba545

The passing the '-k' often made quite a few issues, so while a few where impacted by stop passing it to the VM, we concluded that much more should profit and that it is the guest OS, or better said its users, responsibility to set the correct on.

What OS runs in your VMs, could you try to actively set the keyboard locale there, if that does not work (but it works with our NoVNC) it honestly seems like an issue from guacamole, which just can be workaround by the old way of forcing a possible problematic config value.

 

[Danilo Rossi]

Hi, I had the same problem with ALTGR characters. I noticed that it's possible to replace ALTGR with the CTRL+ALT sequence (not CTRL+ALTGR) so, to send the 'at@' character (Italian layout) i had to send ctrl+alt+ò.

Hope can help