SPICE and remote-viewer virt-viewer versions

[drnoelkelly]

Hello All

I have spent far too much time trying to get SPICE working with Proxmox (version 4.x-5.x) from Windows clients so I thought it would be helpful if we could have a thread to help spell out which versions of 'remote-viewer' work with the Proxmox SPICE proxy and why some don't.

My Linux clients do not generally have a problem with SPICE ("remote-viewer version 1.00"). However I discovered a recent Kali Linux 2020 install which cannot connect ("remote-viewer version 7.00").

For Windows clients I have found that 'remote-viewer.exe v5.0.-256' connects with W10 but does not connect with Windows Server 2012R2.

After seeing older forum posts referring to 'remote-viewer v0.5.7' I have found that does connect on Windows Server 2012v2.

Virt-Viewer versions v6-v9 do not seem to connect on all Windows versions and, from my Kali experience above, seemingly not on Linux either which might become more of an issue for me.

Does anyone have any definitive info/guide to which versions can connect?

Does anyone have any info on why new versions of virt-viewer can't connect to the Proxmox SPICE proxy and if there is any planned resolution or workaround?

Many thanks,
Noel

 

[drnoelkelly]

Sorry I meant to attach this from https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/SPICE

 

[Moayad]

Hi,

Spice works here with Kali linux, Win8, Win10, WinServer 2019 and 2012, so could you post output of these commands to see what versions do you have:
pveversion -v
virt-viewer -V

 

[drnoelkelly]

Many thanks for the reply, Moayad.

Attached is the list of pveversion output for some of the Proxmox hosts.

For virt-viewer versions:

Linux clients (connecting fine):
virt-viewer -V
virt-viewer version 1.00

Kali not connecting:
nkelly@kali2020a:~$ virt-viewer -V
virt-viewer version 7.0

(I have attached tcpdump capture file for virt-viewer v7 -> pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.8-3 in case it is of interest - note a couple of packets from another conversation crept into so you need to filter the conversation)


Virt-Viewer on Windows

I have tried the following VV versions on Windows 10 Pro:

v0.5.6 (success)
v0.5.7 (success)
v5.0-256 (success)
v6.0-256 (fail)
v7.0-256 (fail)
v8.0-256 (fail)
v9.0-256 (fail)

I have only tried the following VV versions on Windows Server 2012r2:

v0.5.6 (success)
v0.5.7 (success)
v5.0-256 (fail)
v7.0-256 (fail)
v9.0-256 (fail)

Mainly my tests have been connecting to pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.8-3 but also the other PVE versions in attached text file.

I am attaching a couple of tcpdump captures:

W10 VV v5 -> pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.8-3 (success)
W10 VV v8 -> pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.8-3 (fail)


Hope this helps and let me know if you need any more captures as I have it teed up here.

My purpose for opening this thread was really to find out if anyone had an existing list of compatible VV versions and PVE versions they could publish as I could not find any useful info but by the sound of it all VV versions should be working which is not of course what I have found!

Cheers
Noel

 

[Moayad]

Thank you,

I suggest that you upgrade PVE version to PVE 6.x because. PVE 5.x will be EOL soon. [0]

Also i installed PVE 5 and installed Win 10, Win2012 everything work but i did update and upgrade for all packages, but you need always use old version of virt-viewer 0.5x [1]

[0] https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_5.x_to_6.0
[1] https://releases.pagure.org/virt-viewer/

 

[drnoelkelly]

Thanks, Moayad.

"you need always use old version of virt-viewer 0.5x"

So it is indeed the case that Windows requires Virt-Viewer v0.5 then?

Actually Virt-Viewer v5 works fine on W10:

virt-viewer-x64-5.0.msi

2016-12-15 09:14​

52M​

Hopefully this info will help others.

Cheers
Noel

 

[Moayad]

Hey,

Sorry, I installed Proxmox version 5.4-3 again to test one more time, because my boss told me SPICE works on Proxmox 5 as well, so i tested Windows 10 with version 9.0 latest version and virt-viewer on Proxmox version is 5.0.


Everything works, maybe you need to update your host and try again.