Spice display for kvm guests

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title: 'SPICE and QXL Display for KVM Guests'
date: '2014-03-24T06:48:20-05:00'
status: publish
permalink: /spice-display-for-kvm-guests
author: admin
excerpt: ''
type: post
id: 571
category:
    - SPICE
tag: []
post_format: []

Very short note on how I used SPICE for accessing a Windows 7 desktop running under KVM. SPICE and QXL provides improved Graphics experience in the guest.

I found more detailed information here: http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/SPICE

In virt manager when editing the guest look under Display Spice heading:
- Type == Spice Server
- Address == All interfaces
** I tried to set the port manually but it keeps defaulting back to Auto.

# virsh dumpxml win7-2 | grep spice
    <channel type='spicevmc'>
      <target type='virtio' name='com.redhat.spice.0'/>
    <graphics type='spice' port='5901' autoport='yes' listen='0.0.0.0'>
    <redirdev bus='usb' type='spicevmc'>
...

Install tools in Windows guest tools:
Download and install here http://www.spice-space.org/download.html

At the time I installed spice-guest-tools-0.74.exe was current. Since this is a KVM guest I already use the virtio drivers for the network interface and disk. The spice guest tools install additional drivers like VIRTIO Balloon Driver and VIRTIO-Serial Driver.

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>From the remote desktop access as follow:</strong></span>

# apt-get install virt-viewer spice-client-gtk
$ remote-viewer spice://192.168.10.10:5901

<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Hints:</strong></span><br></br>
** As mentioned I could not set the port manually for some reason so I had to go look on the KVM host process list to see which port was being used.<br></br>
** Also make sure you don't have a firewall blocking the port you are after.</p>