MacOS Connect to KVM Client Desktop

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Updated instruction for MacOS.

In MacOS direct connect to KVM client desktop I talked about XQuartz and virt-viewer. This will show you how to run virt-manager and virsh.

NOTE: The user id <user> on KVM host used for ssh should be added to group libvirt already. Check out Alpine KVM for preparing KVM for remote management. <user>’s ssh key should also be setup.

Install Homebrew

Homebrew allow Linux package to be installed and ran on MacOS/X system. Follow instruction on Homebrew:

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/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Install virt-manager and virt-viewer

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brew tap jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager
brew install virt-manager virt-viewer libvirt

Using virt-manager and virsh

On Linux, you can connect to remote KVM host as follow:

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virt-manager -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system'

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system'

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system' list

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system' net-list --all

On MacOS, however, we have to append ?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock to the connection string. /var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock is where the file libvirt-sock located on your KVM host. Though unlikely, you may have to modify it according to your environment.

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virt-manager -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock'

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock'

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock' list

virsh -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock' net-list --all

Using virt-viewer

virt-viewer is a command line tool to open remote KVM client desktop. It use the same syntax as virsh and virt-manager.

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virt-viewer -c 'qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock' <vm-name>

Using remote-viewer

remote-viewer is a small GUI interface allow you to connect to remote KVM desktop without using virt-manager. It connect to spice port directly.

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spice://<ip/hostname>:<port>
spice://localhost:5900
spice://192.168.0.10:5901

Note If you are not using ssh tunnel for spice port, then you have to configure the client Display Spice to listen on All Interfaces.

remote-viewer

Bonus - ZSH Functions

If you want to manage KVM from a MacOS and using zsh, add following to the end of .zshrc:

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kvm(){
  REMOTE=$1
  shift
  virsh -c "qemu+ssh://${REMOTE}/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock" $@
}

kvm-list(){
  kvm $1 "list --all"
}

kvm-stop(){
  kvm $1 shutdown $2
}

kvm-start(){
  kvm $1 start $2
}

kvm-manager(){
  nohup virt-manager -c "qemu+ssh://$1/system?socket=/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock" &
}

Usage:

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kvm user@hostname # virsh connect to remote host and enter interactive mode
kvm user@hostname list --all # virsh connect to remote host and do 'list --all'

kvm-list user@hostname # same as above
kvm-stop user@hostname vm-name # virsh connect to remote host and shutdown vm-name
kvm-start user@hostname vm-name # virsh connect to remote host and start vm-name

kvm-manager user@hostname # start virt-manager connect to remote host