KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – III – local access with remote-viewer via a Unix socket

In the last article of this series

KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – II – local access with remote-viewer via a network port
KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – I – Overview over local and remote access methods

I discussed “remote-viewer” – a tool to access the graphical Spice console of a virtual machine [VM] on a KVM/Qemu host. Although remote-viewer is thought to be used over network connections, you can also use it locally on the virtualization host itself, e.g. in a desktop virtualization scenario.

To get an overview we first had a brief look at some central libvirt and qemu configuration files which control the interaction of Spice clients with the libvirtd daemonand/or the Qemu-emulator. We then defined a network port (e.g. 20001) in the Spice related entry of the VM’s XML configuration file. This file is evaluated when you start a Qemu VM with virsh or virt-manager. Afterward we could access the Spice console of the VM by entering

spice://localhost:20001

on a terminal in a graphical desktop session on the KVM host. If the host had an IP like 192.168.2.22

spice://192.168.2.22:20001

would in principle work, too. But a successful outcome may, of course, depend on local firewall settings for your network devices.

We verified that remote-viewer supports a multi-screen presentation of any major graphical Linux desktop started on the VM. Present versions of KDE and Gnome on a Kali/Debian/Opensuse guest automatically adapt to changes of the user’s Spice client windows (on the host’s desktop). XFCE, however, requires a manual configuration of the virtual screens with tools of the guest OS.

I also demonstrated that a Spice console session corresponds to a fragile “one seat” situation: Other local or remote users can kick us out of our Spice session at any time. We could at least protect us against unauthorized session switches by defining a password for the Spice console. So far, so good.

But: Local access via a network port is certainly not the fastest method for local user interaction with a VM: Each transaction triggers operations of a TCP network stack. Can we get around this?

Yes, we can – by working with a Unix socket on the VM host. This is the subject of this article. While we prepare a Spice socket configuration for remote-viewer we also answer the question which sockets the libvirtd daemon offers for its client.

We use our test VM “debianx” again, which has a Kali OS installed together with multiple desktops to choose from (Gnome, KDE, XFCE). The KVM/Qemu host is a Opensuse Leap 15.2 system with a KDE desktop.

Documentation? Not really …

I did not find any hints in the Opensuse documentation on virtualization of how to use remote-viewer with a Unix socket. Neither the man pages, nor other user-friendly descriptions of remote-viewer gave me a clue. I got a socket based approach to work after an accidental view into two discussions on the Internet plus a bit of trial and error. These are links to the discussions I referred to:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-virtualization-and-cloud-90/remote-viewer-spice-qemu-and-unix-domain-socket-how-to-connect-4175571914/
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1335832

You may find a description of socket based configurations for Spice also in articles on Virgl3D based rendering – a local socket based configuration is essential there.

Spice access via a socket

The first article of this series contains a schematic drawing which shows various access methods to the Spice console of a VM. However, aside TCP ports I had not displayed any Unix sockets there. The following picture gives you an idea how such a local alternative could look like:

You should not take the direct connections to the Spice console too literally. Of course, the real interaction occurs between remote-viewer and the Qemu-emulator.

In the drawing I also indicated that libvirt-based tools (as virt-manager, virt-viewer), which do not directly interact with the qemu-emulator, use a specific socket which is automatically created at a standard location on Opensuse Leap 15.x systems.

Off topic: What sockets are used by virt-manager and virt-viewer?

Actually, libvirtd exposes multiple sockets to libvirt clients – each for a specific purpose; see
https://libvirt.org/manpages/libvirtd.html
and
https://libvirt.org/daemons.html
for details.

Virt-manager has its own graphical console window. Select a running VM and simply choose the menu-point “Open” to open a Spice client window on your host.

Note: In contrast to remote-viewer and also virt-viewer, virt-manager does not allow you to open multiple “screen”windows.

In a terminal window we ask “netstat” to inform us about relevant active sockets; just for interest we also look into related directories:

MySRV:~ # netstat | grep libv
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     554391   /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     513499   /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     554599   /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     515826   /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/monitor.sock
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     513581   /run/libvirt/libvirt-sock
MySRV:~ # 
MySRV:~ # la /run/libvirt/ | grep sock
srw-------  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 libvirt-admin-sock
srw-rw-rw-  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 libvirt-sock
srw-rw-rw-  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 libvirt-sock-ro
srw-------  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 virtlockd-sock
srw-------  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 virtlogd-admin-sock
srw-------  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 virtlogd-sock
MySRV:~ #
MySRV:~ # la /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/ 
total 44
drwxr-x--- 10 qemu qemu 4096 Mar  9 17:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:01 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 qemu qemu 4096 Apr  2  2017 channel
drwxr-xr-x  2 qemu qemu 4096 Nov 16 17:56 checkpoint
drwxr-x---  2 qemu qemu 4096 Mar  9 17:48 domain-1-debianx
drwxr-xr-x  2 qemu qemu 4096 Apr  2  2017 dump
drwxr-xr-x  2 qemu qemu 4096 Apr  2  2017 nvram
drwxr-xr-x  3 qemu qemu 4096 Sep 10  2018 ram
drwxr-xr-x  2 qemu qemu 4096 Apr  2  2017 save
drwxr-xr-x  2 qemu qemu 4096 Apr  2  2017 snapshot
MySRV:~ #
MySRV:~ # la /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/ 
total 20
drwxr-x---  2 qemu qemu 4096 Mar  9 17:48 .
ndrwxr-x--- 10 qemu qemu 4096 Mar  9 17:48 ..
-rw-------  1 qemu qemu   32 Mar  9 17:48 master-key.aes
srwxrwxr-x  1 root root    0 Mar  9 17:48 monitor.sock
MySRV:~ # 

By the way: A nice tool to list sockets is “ss“; try “ss -axeo | grep libv” or

ss -a –unix -p | grep virt

for instance.

Some sockets obviously have very restrictive rights settings. However, the rights situation seems to be totally relaxed for two of the sockets in “/run/libvirt”. As we shall see in a minute these sockets are the relevant ones for Spice clients using libvirt.

Readers of the last article may have guessed that we configure access rights to these sockets in the file “/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf”. Sorry, but on a standard Opensuse Leap system this is wrong. Instead the sockets are created by systemd during the start of the libvirtd.service. See the respective files libvirtd.service, libvirtd.socket, libvirtd-ro.socket in the folder “/usr/lib/systemd/system”:

MySRV:/usr/lib/systemd/system # cat libvirtd.service 
[Unit]
Description=Virtualization daemon
Requires=virtlogd.socket
Requires=virtlockd.socket
# Use Wants instead of Requires so that users
# can disable these three .socket units to revert
# to a traditional non-activation deployment setup
Wants=libvirtd.socket
Wants=libvirtd-ro.socket
Wants=libvirtd-admin.socket
Wants=systemd-machined.service
.....

and e.g.

MySRV:/usr/lib/systemd/system # cat libvirtd-ro.socket
[Unit]
Description=Libvirt local read-only socket
Before=libvirtd.service
BindsTo=libvirtd.socket
After=libvirtd.socket

[Socket]
# The directory must match the /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf unix_sock_dir setting
# when using systemd version < 227
ListenStream=/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro
Service=libvirtd.service
SocketMode=0666

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

A standard rights setting of “666” is used. You could change this in a special local file under “/etc/systemd/”. We shall return to respective settings in another article.

Virsh and virt-manager require a (rw) socket which allows for VM re-configuration, i.e. writing operations to the Qemu-emulator configuration data for a VM. This socket is “/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock“.

Regarding access to a Spice console, however, a so called “ro”-socket, namely “/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro“, is sufficient. You can verify this by trying

virt-viewer -c qemu:///system?socket=/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro

The “ro” refers to a denial of configuration writing and changes of Qemu-process parameters controlling the VM. It is NOT directly related to the Linux access rights of the socket itself. Actually, the socket is a “stream” socket; this already implies that the user needs write access to it. Which is given in an Opensuse Leap system. See the generous “rw-rw-rw-“-setting in the listings above!

This raises the question:
What restricts the access to these libvirt standard sockets at all on an Opensuse Leap system?

Answer:
Its a policy setting; see the Opensuse documentation in “Virtualization guide – Connecting and authorizing“. More on this topic in another article.

How would we specify an URI, which points to a Unix-socket, for remote-viewer?

To force remote-viewer to use a Unix socket we first have to find out how we specify an URI pointing to such a socket. Well, the first of the named articles above together with the man-pages for remote-viewer gives us an idea. The right form for a local access is:

remote-viewer -v spice+unix://Path-To-Socket

Note that a path down from the root ”
/” of the Linux directory tree will lead to three “///” !

You cannot use the libvirtd-sockets with remote-viewer!

Can we use the sockets provided by libvirtd with remote-viewer? The answer is: No. More precisely: I do not know how, if it should work against my expectations. We use the above recipe and try:

MySRV:~ # remote-viewer -v  spice+unix:///var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/monitor.sock
Guest (null) has a spice display
Opening connection to display at spice+unix:///var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/monitor.sock

With the result:

Something equally negative happens with

MySRV:~ # remote-viewer -v spice+unix:///run/libvirt/libvirt-sock
Guest (null) has a spice display
Opening connection to display at spice+unix:///run/libvirt/libvirt-sock

(remote-viewer:22055): GSpice-WARNING **: 19:29:01.691: incomplete link header (-104/16)

We are stuck. Well, it would have been too simple. And it would have been strange, too, because remote-viewer was made to directly access Qemu. So, the next logical question is:

How can we tell Qemu to provide a suitable Unix socket for the Spice console?

Required settings in the XML domain file for the VM => specify a socket for the Spice item

We can use the information provided in the Red Hat bug tracker mentioned above. We guess that we can change the Spice settings according to the following pattern in the VMs’ domain definition file “/etc/libvirt/qemu/debianx.xml”:

    
    <graphics type='spice' autoport='no' keymap='de' defaultMode='insecure'>
      <listen type='socket' socket='/tmp/spice.socket'/>
      <image compression='off'/>
      <gl enable='no'/>
    </graphics>

You see that I choose the “/tmp”-directory to create a socket. The directory must of course be writeable. For whom? And which access rights will our aspired socket get?

It is reasonable to assume that we will see the rights of the specific system user, which is used to run Qemu processes for VMs. We already saw in the last article that this is the user named “qemu” (single member of group “qemu”) on a standard Opensuse system.

OK, let us see whether we can start our “debianx” test VM with this new Spice item in its XML configuration.

No problem! To check whether the VM really is operational we start virt-manager’s integrated Spice console window and log into Kali’s KDE desktop:

No problem there either.
Note the settings for the Spice window – the last menu point must be checked to guarantee an automatic adaption of the VM’s desktop to the dimensions of the Spice console window.

If you now would use

virt-viewer -c qemu:///system?socket=/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro

again, virt-manager’s Spice window would be closed (one seat!) and a virt-viewer window would open (NOT a remote-viewer window; see the top bar of the window below).


But all of this is no proof that a new socket has been created. virt-manager and virt-viewer use the sockets “/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock” and “/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock-ro” (to connect to libvirtd) – as we already know. But a look into the “/tmp”-folder

MySRV:~ # ls -lisa /tmp | grep spice
1452545    0 srwxrwxr-x   1 qemu  qemu        0 Mar 13 14:31 spice.socket
MySRV:~ # 

actually shows that we indeed have a new socket. We get an additional confirmation by netstat:

MySRV:~ # netstat -ax | grep spice
unix  2      [ ACC ]     STREAM     LISTENING     137989   /tmp/spice.socket
MySRV:~ # 

Remote-viewer with a local Unix socket

Let us use the prepared socket as user “uvma”. Unfortunately, a first trial with

remote-viewer spice+unix:///tmp/spice.socket

fails due to insufficient access rights. Obviously, the user “uvma” needs write rights on the specified “stream” socket.

The most simple solution for the moment is to add the user “uvma”, which we already put into a privileged group “libvirt” in the last article, to the group “qemu”, too. (This is probably not the best solution. We come back to security aspects later.) But for the time being we enter (as root)

usermod -a -G qemu uvma

As user “uvma” we afterward log out and in again to our desktop session on the host. In a terminal window we then enter (as user “uvma”)

remote-viewer spice+unix:///tmp/spice.socket

It works! A new Spice client window for remote-viewer is opened. I added one more “screen” and also started some applications to see, if we can really interact with the VM – which is indeed the case. Even sound works (if pulseaudio is used on the host):

Great!

Security considerations

Besides an improved performance, working with a Unix socket avoids opening a network port and related potential security issues. But, as we saw, we need some special rights for such a scenario. Which also has security implications ….

Regarding this point I do not think that putting a user into the “qemu”-group is a good idea. Well, you could argue that our user “uvma” is already privileged regarding VMs. Yes, true enough. But we may change this in the future and separate users which can use virt-manager from others which use remote-viewer for a specific VM: The user who gets the right to open the Spice console may be different from the special user which is allowed to start the VM.

Another problem is that a user being member of the qemu group has almost the same rights as the “qemu”-user itself. But, in contrast to the special user “qemu” on an Opensuse Leap system, a normal user as “uvma” has a login-shell:

MySRV:/etc/libvirt/qemu # cat /etc/passwd | grep qemu
qemu:x:484:483:qemu user::/sbin/nologin
MySRV:/etc/libvirt/qemu # cat /etc/passwd | grep uvma
uvma:x:1025:100:uvma:/home/uvma:/bin/bash

“uvma” needs a login-shell as
he/she shall work with remote-viewer in his/her desktop session on the host. So, if this user gets hacked (e.g. via a browser bug) this would have consequences for all VMs on the host.

We can at least confine a selected user’s impact to a specific VM. Let us take a user “uvmb”. We want to allow this user to access our test-VM “debianx” locally via a socket – but only this VM!

For this purpose we create a special group “spicex” and add both “qemu”, “uvma” and “uvmb” to this group.

usermod -a -G spicex uvmb
usermod -a -G spicex uvma
gpasswd -d uvma qemu

We also remove user “uvma” from the “qemu”-group.

Then we create a special directory “/var/spice/spicex“. You can, of course, choose a different path. We set the group of this folder to “spicex”. Then we set the “s”-flag on the group and use ACLs to enforce a default group for the user and the group with certain rights on an files created in this folder.

chown qemu.spicex /var/spice/spicex
chmod g+s /var/spice/spicex
setfacl -dm u:qemu:rwx,g:spicex:rwx,other::--- /var/spice/spicex

In addition we stop our VM and change its XML configuration to

    <graphics type='spice' autoport='no' keymap='de' defaultMode='insecure'>
      <listen type='socket' socket='/var/spice/spicex/spice.socket'/>
      <image compression='off'/>
      <gl enable='no'/>
    </graphics>

Afterward we restart the libvirtd-daemon. That’s it. Te next time, you start your VM by virt-manager as “uvma” you get something like

MySRV:/var/spice/spicex # la
total 12
drwxrws---+ 2 qemu spicex 4096 Mar 17 19:26 .
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root   4096 Mar 15 16:32 ..
srwxrwx---+ 1 qemu spicex    0 Mar 17 19:26 spice.socket

Now, you change to user “uvmb” by logging out and starting a new X-/KDE-session on the host or by just entering “su – uvmb” in a terminal. We login as “uvmb” and try

uvmb@MySRV:~> remote-viewer -v  spice+unix:///var/spicex/spice.socket

This should work; if you stayed in the KDE session of user “uvma” you probably get some error messages regarding audio and a denied pulseaudio access. But the Spice graphics should be OK. Similar precaution measures should be taken for other VMs. ACLs give you enough flexibility to control VM-specific access. Now, you could remove “uvma” from group spicex – and get some kind of tool access segregation. It would not make much sense however as long as uvma still is privileged by being a member of the libvirt group; uvma still can open the Spice console at any time via libvirtd and its special sockets. Regard “uvma” as a VM administrator.

Summary:
The configuration of a VM with a Unix socket has the advantage that we can control the Spice session access, and thereby a potential session switch to another user, a bit better. We restrict the access to libvirtd to selected members of an administrative group and the access to the socket to a selected user of the VM. Though it does not hurt to have a password in place in addition …

Off topic hint 1: Adjustment of Spice screen positions relative to each other on the guest system

When you open a second Spice windows with remote-viewer it is not guaranteed that the guest’s desktop system initially places these virtual Spice screens seamlessly side-a-side. But both KDE, Gnome and XFCE provide graphical tools to adjust the geometrical relation of multiple screens. With the help of these tools you can specify how relative corner positions of the virtual screens are handled. You only have to do this once, afterwards you can move your Spice windows around on the host’s desktop as you like :

Relative positioning of two virtual Spice screens with the monitor tool of the guest’s KDE desktop

Independent positions of the Spice windows on the KDE desktop of the KVM/Qemu host

Even resizing of the Spice windows won’t disturb the relative position definition of the virtual screen corners in the guest.

Off topic hint 2: Workaround for faulty Clipboard interaction between the KDE sessions on the host and in the Qemu guest VM

I noticed a strange dis-coupling between the functionality of the clipboard of KDE main session on the host and the clipboard of guest VM’s KDE session. Due to the spice-vdagent they should work seamlessly together. It looked OK in the beginning for the exchange of data between the host and the VM. However, when I tried to copy between two terminal windows on the host I got error message in the terminal from which I started the guest VM:

Spice-CRITICAL **: 14:46:03.424: clipboard_request: assertion 's->clipboard_by_guest[selection] == FALSE' failed

And no data were copied! This disappeared as soon as I activated the “system” tray in the control bar of the guest’s KDE desktop, activated the clipboard entry there and adjusted the clipboard settings there to those of the KDE session on the host.

Conclusion

Remote-viewer works very well with a local Unix socket instead of a TCP socket as the interface to the Qemu-emulator process of the VM. A socket based local access scenario to a Spice console can easily be configured via respective settings in the XML-definition file of a VM. However, to improve security you should avoid adding a standard user who wants to use remote-viewer to the “qemu” group. Involving ACL rights will help you to confine users to access the Spice console of specific VMs via placing a socket into a specific directory and controlling access to it and its contents.

Note by the way that using Unix sockets locally on the host also allows for a new remote-access scenario via SSH. Such a scenario could even be more efficient than a TLS encrypted standard connection over a network port in a LAN. Much to discover! Stay tuned. In the next article

KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – IV – remote access via SSH, remote-viewer and a Unix socket

I will show you how to use remote-viewer via SSH.

Links

The ss-command to list up sockets
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3327557/using-the-linux-ss-command-to-examine-network-and-socket-connections.html

lbvirt and authentication on Opensuse
https://documentation.suse.com/sles/15-SP1/html/SLES-all/cha-libvirt-connect.html

KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – II – local access with remote-viewer via a network port

In my first article in this series on local and remote connections to the Spice console of a KVM/Qemu virtual machine [VM] I have given you an overview over some major options. See the central drawing in

KVM/qemu with the graphical multi-screen Spice console – I – Overview over local and remote access methods

In this post we explore a part of the drawing’s left side – namely a local connection with the remote-viewer client over a network-port and the “lo”-device. Local means that we access the Spice console with a Spice client in a desktop session on the KVM/Qemu host.

You can find some basic information on “remote-viewer” here.

Note: “remote-viewer” supports VNC, too, but we ignore this ability in this series.

A local scenario with remote-viewer on a KVM/Qemu host corresponds to desktop virtualization – though done with a remote tool. Such an approach can become a bit improper, because setting up ports for potential remote network connections always has security implications. This is one of the reasons why I actually want to discuss two different local access methods which can be realized with remote-viewer:

  • Method 1: Access via a network port (TCP socket). This standard method is well documented on the Internet both regarding the VM’s setup (e.g. with virt-manager) and the usage of remote-viewer (see the man pages). The network based scenario is also depicted in my drawing.
  • Method 2: Access via a local Unix socket. This method is not documented so well – neither regarding the VM’s setup (e.g. with virt-manager) and not at all by the man pages for remote-viewer.

You may complain now that I never indicated anything in the above drawing about a pure Unix socket! Well, at the time of writing the first article I did not even know that remote-viewer worked over a pure Unix socket and how one can configure the VM for a Unix socket. I will discuss the more common “Method 1” in this present article first. “Method 2” will be the subject of the next post – and then I will provide an update of the drawing. Talking about sockets: When you think a bit about it – Unix sockets must already be an ingredient of the local interaction of libvirt-tools with qemu, too, ….

Below I will discuss a set up for “Method 1” which is totally insecure. But it can be realized in a very simple way and is directly supported by virt-manager for the VM setup. Thus, it will give us a first working example without major efforts for creating TLS certificates. But, you are/were warned:

Disclaimer:
The test-configurations I discuss in this and the next articles of this series may lead to major security risks. Such configurations should NOT be used in productive multi-user and/or network environments without carefully crafted protection methods (outside the qemu-configuration) – as local firewall protection, system policies, etc. I take no responsibility whatever for an improper usage of the ideas presented in this article
series.

Assumptions for test scenarios

  • The KVM/Qemu host in this article series is an Opensuse Leap 15.2 host. Most of the prescriptions discussed may work with some minor modifications also on other Linux distributions. But you must look up documentations and manuals …
  • I assume that you already have set up a KVM/Qemu based test-VM with virsh or virt-manager. Let us call the VM “debianx“. Actually, it is a Kali system in my case. (Most of the discussed measures will work on guests with a Debian OS, too.)
  • On our Opensuse KVM host we find a XML-definition file “debianx.xml” for a libvirt domain (i.e. a VM) below the directory “/etc/libvirt/qemu/“, i.e. “/etc/libvirt/qemu/debianx.xml”. It has a typical XML structure and can be edited directly if required.
  • The KVM host itself has a FQDN of “MySRV.mydomain.de“. (MySRV is partiall writtenin big letters to remind you that you have to replace it by your own domain.
  • The user on the KVM host, who invokes remote-viewer to access the VM, has a name “uvma“. We will later add him to a group “libvirt” which gets access rights to libvirt tools. We shall also work with a different user “uvmb” who is a member of the group “users”, only. Both users work on a graphical desktop on the KVM/Qemu host (!) – let us say a KDE desktop. These users open one or more Spice client windows on the host’s desktop to display graphical desktops of the KVM/Qemu guest VMs – as if the windows were screens of the VM.

We must carefully distinguish between the (KDE) desktop used by “uvma” on the KVM host and the desktop of the guest VM:

The Spice client windows on the KVM host’s (or later on independent remote systems) desktop present full graphical desktops (Gnome, XFCE, KDE …) of the VM and allow for interactive working with the VM. The desktop used on the host can, of course, be of a different type than the one used on the guest.

I will use this first practical article also

  • to have a brief look at two basic configuration files for libvirtd and qemu settings,
  • to discuss some basic setup options for a Qemu VM,
  • to check the multi-screen ability of remote-viewer
  • and to prove the “one-seat” situation for the Spice console.

I restrict my hints regarding the guest configuration to Kali/Debian or Opensuse Leap guest systems on the VM. I provide images for a Kali guest system, only. I do not have time for more …

Make backups

Before you start any experiments you should make a backup of the directories “/etc/libvirt” and “/etc/pki” of your host – and in doubt also of the disk-files (or real partitions) of your existing VMs. You should also experiment with a non-productive test VM, only.

Basic security considerations

(In-) Security is always a bit relative. Let us consider briefly, what we intend to do with respect to “Method 1”:

With the first method we define a network port for unencrypted connections without authentication.

In principle the port can be used by anyone having access to your network or anyone present on your PC. Such a configuration is therefore only reasonable for desktop virtualization

  • if you really are alone on your PC
  • AND if you have a local firewall preventing access to the port from any other system AND if there is a local policy restricting access to the Qemu-hypervisor or Spice-clients.

nOtherwise it opens a much too big attack surface. Remember: Anyone being able to use the network port can kick you off your Spice console session seat, remotely, locally and also when you are already logged into the guest OS. And:

All data transfer over any kind of network device (lo, ethernet, virtual devices on the host, …) occurs unencrypted. Other users on your machine (legal users, e.g. active via ssh, or attackers) may with some privilege escalation be able to read it.

Access to the Spice console itself can, however, be restricted to users who know a password. At the end of this article we will add such a simple password to our configuration to get at least some basic protection against kicking you out of a Spice console session.

Preparational step 1: Settings in “/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf” and the integration of Spice with Qemu

As mentioned in the last article, Spice is fully integrated with the Qemu-emulator. So, it will not surprise you that we can modify some general properties of connections to a VM’s Spice console by parameter settings in a configuration file for Qemu. The relevant file in the libvirt-dominated virtualization environment of Opensuse Leap 15.2 is

/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf“.

Readers of my last article may ask now: Why do we need to configure the Qemu-driver of libvirt at all, when we access the Spice console with remote-viewer directly via Qemu ? I.e., without passing a libvirt-layer? As depicted in the drawing?

Answer: Probably you and me start KVM/Qemu based VMs through “virsh” or “virt-manager“, i.e. libvirt components. Then libvirt drivers which are responsible to start the VMs according to its setting profile must know what we expect from the Qemu emulator. If you worked directly with the qemu-emulator (by calling “/usr/bin/qemu-x86_64”) you would have to specify a lot of options to control the outcome! Some sections below you will find an example. Libvirt-programs only automate this process.

“qemu.conf” allows for general default settings of a variety of qemu-parameters. Some of them can, however, be overwritten by VM-specific settings; see the next section. When you scroll through the file you come to a major section which contains Spice parameters. For an easy beginning of our experiments we set some selected parameters to the following values:

 
#spice_listen = "0.0.0.0" # just leave it as it is 
# .... 
spice_tls = 0  # This corresponds to a deactivation of TLS and a INSECURE configuration!
spice_tls_x509_cert_dir = "/etc/pki/libvirt-spice"
# .... 
# just leave the next settings as it is - it creates a socket at  "/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/monitor.sock"
#spice_auto_unix_socket = 1  
spice_sasl = 0

Our first setting deactivates TLS. This is reasonable as long a we have not created valid TLS server certificates and encryption keys. But we can already define a default directory into which we later place such a certificate and key files. We also deactivate any SASL authentication support for the time being. (Actually, even if you left it at the default value of “1” it would not help you much – as on Opensuse systems a required file “/etc/sasl2/qemu.conf” is missing, yet. As standard SASL encryption methods are insecure today, SASL activation makes sense in combination with TLS only.

General security precautions in “/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf”
Talking about security: On an Opensuse system with activated “apparmor” you could/should set the following parameters in “/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf”:

 
security_driver = "apparmor"
security_default_confined = 1

to confine VMs.

Note: If “apparmor” is deactivated for some reason you will after these settings not be able to use virt-manager or virsh.
You can check the status of apparmor via “rcapparmor status” or systemctl status apparmor”.
(Off topic: Those interested in process separation should also have a look at cgroup-settings for the VMs. I would not change the basic settings, if you do not know exactly what you are doing. But folks trying to experiment with “virgl3D” may need to add “/dev/dri/renderD128” to the device list for ACLs.)

Preparational step A: A brief look a “/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf” – allow a selected standard user to use virt-manger or virsh

As we are within the folder “/etc/libvirt”, we take the chance to very briefly look at another configuration file, which will become more interesting in later articles:

/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf

Among other things this file contains a variety of parameters which control the access to libvirt tools via Unix sockets or TCP-sockets – with and without TLS and/or some form of authentication. This is of no direct importance for what we presently are doing with remote-viewer – as we access Spice console directly via qemu, i.e. without a libvirt-layer. However, for convenience reasons you should nevertheless be able to use virt-manager or virsh. If you do not want to work as root all the time you, i.e. he normal user “uvma”, need(s) special access rights to access Unix sockets which are automatically opened by libvirtd. How can this be achieved on an Opensuse Leap system?

You can configure a special user-group (e.g. a group named “libvirt”) to get access to virt-manager. You can do this in a section named “UNIX socket access controls”. The instructions in Opensuse’s documentation on virtualization (see: Connections and authorization and section 9.1.1.1 therein) will help you with this. Afterwards you must of course add your selected and trusted user (here: “uvma”) to the defined group.

Note: The libvirtd-process is nevertheless run by the user “root” and not with the rights of the standard user (here “uvma”). The group just allows for a kind of sudo execution. Note also that the central sockets by which libvirt-clients connect to the libvirtd-daemon are created by systemd.

By the way – who is the user for qemu-processes on an Opensuse Leap system?
On an Opensuse there is a special user “qemu” which is used to run the Qemu-emulator processes for VMs. We also find a related group “qemu”. User and group have special rights regarding aes-keys for potential credential encryption related to a VM. The user and its group also define the access right to special Unix sockets generated directly by the Qemu emulator and not by libvirtd. We shall request such a Unix socket from Qemu in the next article.

On other operative systems you may find a different pre-configured group for libvirt access rights. In addition the standard qemu-user may have a different name. For Debian and derivatives you find related information at the following links:
whats-the-purpose-of-kvm-libvirt-and-libvirt-qemu-groups-in-linux,
install-configure-kvm-debian-10-buster,
libvirt_qemu_kvm_debian .

Preparational step B: Restart libvirtd or reload its configuration after changes to qemu.conf, livirtd.conf or changes to XML-definition files for VMs

Changes of the file “/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf” or “/etc/libvirt/libvird.conf” require that the libvirtd daemon is restarted or forced to reload its configuration. The same is true for any changes of
XML-definition files for VMs located in “/etc/lbvirt/qemu/”. (We will change such files later on). According to the man page sending a SIGHUP signal to the daemon will enforce a reload of the configuration. You can indirectly achieve this by the commands

rclibvirtd reload [on Opensuse systems)
or
systemctl reload libvirtd [any system with systemd]

But: Any libvirt or qemu changes will NOT affect already running VMs. You have to stop them, then restart libvirtd, reload the daemon’s configuration and restart the VMs again.

Preparational step C: Configure the VM to use a Spice-console – and some other devices

Ok, let us prepare our VM for “Method 1”. As we are in a libvirt environment we could use virt-manager to perform the required Spice configuration (see the image in the first article) . But we can also directly edit the XML configuration file “/etc/libvirt/qemu/debianx.xml” – assuming that you already have a working configuration for your VM. You need to be root to edit the files directly. See the restrictive access rights of the domain definition files

-rw------- 1 root root   4758 Mar  8 13:33 debianx.xml

By the way: A detailed description of possible parameter settings is provided at https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html. Search for Spice and qxl …..

Regarding “Method 1” I use the following settings. The listing below only gives you an excerpt of the XML domain file, but it contains the particularly relevant settings for “graphics” (can be looked upon as a display device) and “video” (an be interpreted as a kind of virtual graphics card):

Excerpts from a libvirt domain definition XML file

   
   <interface type='network'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:93:38:4c'/>
      <source network='os'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
   ...
   <graphics type='spice' port='20001' autoport='no' listen='0.0.0.0' keymap='de' >    
      <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/>
      <image compression='off'/>
    </graphics>
   ... 
    <sound model='ich6'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/>
    </sound>
    ...
    <video>
      <model type='qxl' ram='262144' vram='65536' vram64='2097152' vgamem='65536' heads='4' primary='yes'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
    </video>
...

Parameters which affect general qemu-related properties (as e.g. the “listen”-settings) will overwrite the settings in “qemu.conf”. The choice of the PCI slot numbers may be different for your guest.

You see that I defined a network (!) port for the VM by which we can access the Spice console data stream directly. I have changed this port from the default “5900” to “20001”.

You should be aware of the fact that this sets a real network port on the KVM host – i.e. a network stack is invoked when accessing the Spice console. As indicated above we can avoid the superfluous network operations by directly working with a Unix socket (Method 2), but this is the topic of the next forthcoming article.

Regarding network port definitions for a Spice console three rules apply:

  • Each of the VMs defined requires its own individual port !
  • Firewalls between the client and the VM have to be opened for this port. This includes local firewalls on the VM, on the KVM host (with rules that may apply to virtual bridges, on the client system and on any network
    components in between.
  • A TLS port has later to be configured in addition if you deactivated the “autoport” functionality – as we have done in the example above. I shall describe how to set the TLS port in a forthcoming article.)

The individual port definitions already imply the provision of a URI with port specification when starting remote-viewer (see below).

Let me briefly comment on the QXL-settings:

The QXL configuration shown above allows for 4 so called “heads” (or connectors) of the virtual graphics device. These heads support up to 4 virtual screens, if requested by the Spice-client. Note that the situation is different from real hardware consoles:
The (Spice) client (here remote-viewer) defines the number of screens attached to the VM’s console by a number of Spice client windows opened on the user’s desktop on the KVM host. The dimensions of these Spice client windows determine the dimensional capabilities of the virtual “screens”.

How the virtual screen resolution is handled afterwards may depend on the user’s own desktop resolution (on the KVM host or a remote system) AND the display settings of the VM’s guest system’s own tools for screen management. Today these are typically tools integrated into the guest’s graphical desktop (KDE, Gnome, XFCE) itself. Present Gnome and KDE5 desktops on the VM’s guest Linux system automatically adapt to the virtual display dimensions – i.e. the Spice window dimensions. But a XFCE desktop on the guest may behave differently; see below.

A short note also on the network settings for our test VM:
A virtual machine will normally be associated with a certain type of virtual network. At least if you want to use it for the provision of services or other network or Internet dependent tasks. You can configure virtual networks with virt-manager (menu “edit” >> “connection details”); but you must be root to do this:

In my case I prefer a separate virtual network for which we need routing on the KVM host. This allows us to configure restrictive firewall rules – e.g, with netfilter on the host. It even allows for the setup of virtual VLANs – a topic which I have extensively covered in other article series in this blog. And when required we just can stop routing on the host.

Guest requirements
Note that the QXL-configuration must also be supported on the VM guest itself: You need a qxl-video-driver there – and it is useful to also have the so called spice-vdagent active (see the my referenced series about a qxl-setup in the last article). On the guest system this requires

  • the installation of the “spice-vdagent” package and the activation of the “spice-vdagent.service” (both on Debian/Kali and Opensuse guest systems) ,
  • the installation of the packet “xserver-xorg-video-qxl” on a Debian/Kali-guest or “xf86-video-qxl” on an Opensuse guest

Present Debian, Kali or Opensuse operative system on the KVM/Qemu guest VM should afterward automatically recognize the QXL-video-device and load the correct driver (via systemd/udev).
Regarding the (virtual) network device on the VM itself you must use the guest system’s tools for the configuration of NICs and of routes.

Preparational step D: Starting the VM – and “Where do I find logs for my VM”?

I assume that you as user “uvma” are logged in to a graphical desktop session on your KVM host “MySRV”. If you are not
yet a member of the libvirt-privileged group, you may need to use sudo for the next step. On a terminal window you then enter “virt-manager &”, select our VM “debianx” and boot it.

If you look at the process list of your KVM host you may find something like:

qemu     17662  5.5  6.8 15477660 4486180 ?    Sl   18:11   2:29 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -machine accel=kvm -name guest=debianx,debug-threads=on -S -object secret,id=masterKey0,format=raw,file=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-1-debianx/master-key.aes -machine pc-i440fx-2.9,accel=kvm,usb=off,vmport=off,dump-guest-core=off -cpu Skylake-Client -m 8192 -overcommit mem-lock=off -smp 3,sockets=3,cores=1,threads=1 -uuid 789498d2-e025-4f8e-b255-5a3ac0f9c965 -no-user-config -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=charmonitor,fd=33,server,nowait -mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=control -rtc base=utc,driftfix=slew -global kvm-pit.lost_tick_policy=delay -no-hpet -no-shutdown -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s3=1 -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s4=1 -boot strict=on -device ich9-usb-ehci1,id=usb,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x7 -device ich9-usb-uhci1,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=0,bus=pci.0,multifunction=on,addr=0x5 -device ich9-usb-uhci2,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=2,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x1 -device ich9-usb-uhci3,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=4,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x2 -device virtio-serial-pci,id=virtio-serial0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x6 -blockdev {"driver":"file","filename":"/virt/debs/debianx.qcow2","node-name":"libvirt-2-storage","cache":{"direct":true,"no-flush":false},"auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"} -blockdev {"node-name":"libvirt-2-format","read-only":false,"cache":{"direct":true,"no-flush":false},"driver":"qcow2","file":"libvirt-2-storage","backing":null} -device virtio-blk-pci,scsi=off,bus=pci.0,addr=0x7,drive=libvirt-2-format,id=virtio-disk0,bootindex=1,write-cache=on -device ide-cd,bus=ide.0,unit=0,id=ide0-0-0 -netdev tap,fd=35,id=hostnet0,vhost=on,vhostfd=36 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:93:38:4c,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -chardev pty,id=charserial0 -device isa-serial,chardev=charserial0,id=serial0 -chardev socket,id=charchannel0,fd=37,server,nowait -device virtserialport,bus=virtio-serial0.0,nr=1,chardev=charchannel0,id=channel0,name=org.qemu.guest_agent.0 -chardev spicevmc,id=charchannel1,name=vdagent -device virtserialport,bus=virtio-serial0.0,nr=2,chardev=charchannel1,id=channel1,name=com.redhat.spice.0 -device usb-tablet,id=input0,bus=usb.0,port=1 -spice port=20001,addr=0.0.0.0,disable-ticketing,plaintext-channel=default,image-compression=off,seamless-migration=on -k de -device qxl-vga,id=video0,ram_size=268435456,vram_size=67108864,vram64_size_mb=2048,vgamem_mb=64,max_outputs=4,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2 -device intel-hda,id=sound0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4 -device hda-duplex,id=sound0-codec0,bus=sound0.0,cad=0 -chardev spicevmc,id=charredir0,name=usbredir -device usb-redir,chardev=charredir0,id=redir0,bus=usb.0,port=2 -chardev spicevmc,id=charredir1,name=usbredir -device usb-redir,chardev=charredir1,id=redir1,bus=usb.0,port=3 -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x8 -object rng-random,id=objrng0,filename=/dev/urandom -device virtio-rng-pci,rng=objrng0,id=rng0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x9 -sandbox on,obsolete=deny,elevateprivileges=deny,spawn=deny,resourcecontrol=deny -msg timestamp=on

 
You see that the user “qemu” started the qemu-process by calling “/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64” and adding a bunch of parameters. You may identify some parameters which stem from the settings in libvirt’s XML definition file for our special the VM (or “domain”).

Afterwards, have a look at connections with
netstat on the host; you should see that something (qemu) listens on the defined Spice port of the VM:

MySRV:/etc/libvirt/qemu # netstat -a -n | grep 20001
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:20001           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN
...

Regarding logs of the VM for error analysis: You will find them in the directory ” /var/log/libvirt/qemu” (on an Opensuse Leap system).

Method 1: Local access to the Spice console with remote-viewer

Now, we are prepared to test a local access to the Spice console with remote-viewer. (As we work via a network port you may still need to open the Spice port on a local firewall – it depends of how you configured your firewall.) The format of the URI we have to specify for remote-viewer is

spice://FQDN_OR_IP:PORT_NR

with

  • FQDN_OR_IP: You have to present a host address which can be resolved by DNS or a directly an IP-address.
  • PORT_NR: The port for the Spice service – here “20001”.

For our setup this translates to

spice://localhost:20001

and thus the command

remote-viewer spice://localhost:20001

As user “uvma” we enter this command in another terminal window of our graphical desktop on the KVM host :

uvma@MySrv:~> remote-viewer spice://localhost:20001

(remote-viewer:22866): GSpice-WARNING **: 12:43:58.150: Warning no automount-inhibiting implementation available

Just ignore the warning. Then you should get a window with a graphical display of some login-screen on the VM. Details depend of course on the configuration of your VM’s operative system. In my case, I get the “gdm3”-login-screen of my virtualized Kali system:

The desktop-manager may be a different one on your system. After a login to a Gnome desktop I use remote-viewer‘s menu to open a 2nd screen:

and get two resizeable screen-windows :

As expected! When we change the dimensions the desktop of the VM adapts to the new virtual screen sizes. Just try it out.

Will this work with a KDE desktop on the Kali guest, too? Yes, it does. KDE5 and Gnome3 can very well coexist on a Kali, Debian or Opensuse Leap15.2 (guest) system! For a Kali system you find information how to install multiple graphical desktop environments e.g. at the following links:
install-kali-linux,
kde-environment-configuring-in-kali,
kali switching-desktop-environments.

The next image shows the transparency effect of a moving terminal window on a KDE desktop of the same Kali VM – again with 2 Spice screens requested by remote-viewer:

Such effects, which can also be configured on Gnome, require an active compositor on the guest’s desktop. At least when working locally on a KVM host I never got any problems with the performance of QXL/Spice and remote-viewer with an active compositor on the guest’s Gnome, KDE, and XFCE-desktops (without OpenGL acceleration). This is a bit different on a remote system and using remote-viewer over a LAN connection; see the next articles.

KDE and Gnome desktops on the VM automatically adapt to the sizes of the virtual screens. XFCE does not … XFCE is the present default desktop on Kali; so I installed after a distribution upgrade. Here some remote-viewer hints for XFCE fans on a VM with Kali/Debian and XFCE:

  • Set the number of screens in remote-viewer to 1. After installing XFCE with ” sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y kali-desktop-xfce” and a reboot we can choose “XFCE-Session” on a button of the gdm3-screen (after having entered the username). It will the boot into a XFCE session.
  • Then with the setting tool you can configure fixed resolutions for the screen displays (see below).
  • Or: Just deactivate a virtual display, resize the respective window on your host’s desktop and reactivate the virtual display again in your XFCE guest. XFCE then automatically recognizes the new screen size and adapts.
  • When logging out choose an option to save the desktop.

Unfortunately, XFCE has no seamless coexistence with KDE or Gome on Kali, yet. The following sequence of steps may fail:
1) Log out of a XFCE desktop-session, 2) choose a KDE or Gnome session afterwards /(this works without rebooting via the gdm menu), 3) log out of KDE/Gnome again and 4) try to restart a XFCE desktop.
On my Kali guest (on an Opensuse KVM host) I always have to reboot the guest to get a working XFCE session again, even if I did not change the screen dimensions during the KDE/Gnome session .. 🙁

Netstat reveals multiple connections corresponding to Spice channels

Using remote-viewer with a netowrk port is a really simple exercise. Most of the text above was spend on looking at the general virtualization environment. But, actually, the situation behind the scenes is not so simple. When we use netstat again, we get the following:

  
MySRV:/etc/libvirt/qemu # netstat -a -n | grep 20001
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:20001           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46738         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46750         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46734         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46750         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46742         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46738         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46740         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46748         127.0.0.1:20001       
  ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46740         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46734         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46728         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46744         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46728         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46742         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:20001         127.0.0.1:46748         ESTABLISHED
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:46744         127.0.0.1:20001         ESTABLISHED

We find many, namely eight (8), active established connections. What do these connections correspond to? Well, they correspond to individual data exchange channels; I quote from
https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#video-devices:

“When SPICE has both a normal and TLS secured TCP port configured, it can be desirable to restrict what channels can be run on each port. This is achieved by adding one or more elements inside the main element and setting the mode attribute to either secure or insecure. Setting the mode attribute overrides the default value as set by the defaultMode attribute. (Note that specifying any as mode discards the entry as the channel would inherit the default mode anyways.) Valid channel names include main, display, inputs, cursor, playback, record (all since 0.8.6 ); smartcard ( since 0.8.8 ); and usbredir ( since 0.9.12 ).”

See also: spice_for_newbies.pdf

Theoretically, one should be able to use remote-viewer itself to activate or deactivate channels by setting up a “target file” for the connection; see the man-pages for more details. But on my machines it does not work neither locally not remotely. 🙁 I did not look into the details of this problem, yet ….

Testing the “one seat situation” at a Spice console

Now its time to test what I claimed in the last article: The Spice console can be accessed only by one user at a time. Let us assume, that user “uvma” is a member of the libvirt-group. Let us in addition create another user “uvmb” which is member of the group “users” on the host, only. I assume that “uvma” has opened a graphical desktop session on the KVM host (MySRV). E.g. a KDE session.

Step 1: As user “uvma” start virt-manager and boot your VM “debianx”. On a terminal window (A) use remote-viewer to open the Spice console of the VM with 2 screens. Log into a graphical desktop of the VM.

Terminal A:

uvma@MySRV:~> remote-viewer -v  spice://localhost:20001
Guest (null) has a spice display
Opening connection to display at spice://localhost:20001

(remote-viewer:20735): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:21:31.344: Warning no automount-inhibiting implementation available

Step 2: On your host-desktop open another terminal window (N) and login via “su – uvmb” as the other user. As “uvmb” now enter “remote-viewer spice://localhost:20001“.

uvma@MySRV:~> su - uvmb
Passwort: 
uvmb@MySRV:~> remote-viewer -v  spice://localhost:20001

This will at once close the open two Spice windows and after a blink of a second open up one or two new Spice windows again. The effect is clearly visible.

On terminal A we get:

Guest debianx display has disconnected, shutting down
uvma@MySRV:~> 

On terminal B we get a lot of warnings – but still the spice windows open in exactly the same status as we left them.

n

uvmb@MySRV:~> remote-viewer -v  spice://localhost:20001

(remote-viewer:20903): dbind-WARNING **: 18:25:40.853: Couldn't register with accessibility bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
Guest (null) has a spice display
Opening connection to display at spice://localhost:20001

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:40.936: PulseAudio context failed Verbindung verweigert

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:40.936: pa_context_connect() failed: Verbindung verweigert
Cannot connect to server socket err = Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
AL lib: (EE) ALCplaybackAlsa_open: Could not open playback device 'default': Keine Berechtigung

(remote-viewer:20903): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 18:25:40.962: g_object_get_is_valid_property: object class 'GstAutoAudioSink' has no property named 'volume'
AL lib: (EE) ALCplaybackAlsa_open: Could not open playback device 'default': Keine Berechtigung

(remote-viewer:20903): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 18:25:40.964: g_object_get_is_valid_property: object class 'GstAutoAudioSrc' has no property named 'volume'
AL lib: (EE) ALCplaybackAlsa_open: Could not open playback device 'default': Keine Berechtigung
AL lib: (EE) ALCcaptureAlsa_open: Could not open capture device 'default': Keine Berechtigung

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:41.015: record: ignoring volume change on audiosrc

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:41.018: record: ignoring mute change on audiosrc

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:41.021: Warning no automount-inhibiting implementation available

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:41.052: playback: ignoring volume change on audiosink

(remote-viewer:20903): GSpice-WARNING **: 18:25:41.052: playback: ignoring mute change on audiosink

 
The warnings are mainly due to the fact that user “uvmb” has no rights to access the Pulseaudio context of the desktop of user “uvma”. (I take care of Pulseaudio in one of the next articles …) At the first switch between the users you may only get one Spice window as “uvmb”. Choose two screens then. Afterwards you can switch multiple times between the users uvma and uvmb. Two windows get closed for the user with present Spice console session, two windows are opened for the requesting user, and so on.

Conclusion: “uvmb” and “uvma” can steal each other the Spice console with remote-viewer as and when they like.

By the way: A Spice console can be left regularly by a user by just closing the Spice client window(s). Note that this will not change the status of your desktop session on the host! This is left open – with all consequences.

Restricting access by setting a password

Let us prevent being thrown of the “seat” in front of our Spice console. As root change the <graphics> definition in VM’s definition file to

...
 <graphics type='spice' port='20001' autoport='no' listen='0.0.0.0' keymap='de' passwd='spicemeandonlyme' defaultMode='insecure'>
      <listen type='address' address='0.0.0.0'/>
      <image compression='off'/>
      <gl enable='no'/>
    </graphics>
   ... 

If you haven’t noticed: The relevant difference is the “passwd” attribute. You could have added this setting via virt-manager, too. Try it out.

Shut down and restart your VM. Any user that now wants to access the Spice console using “remote-viewer spice://
localhost:20001” will be asked for a password. You yourself, too, if you close the console and try to reopen it.

Regarding security: The password transfer will to my understanding be AES encrypted. See Daniel P. Berrangé’s blog https://www.berrange.com/posts/2016/04/01/improving-qemu-security-part-3-securely-passing-in-credentials/. But as long as the rest of the data exchange with the VM is not encrypted, this precaution measure won’t help too much against ambitioned attackers.

Conclusion

Using remote-viewer locally on a KVM host in combination with a network port to access a VM’s graphical Spice console is easy and convenient. It requires a minimum of settings. In addition it offers up to four virtual screens which you can open via a menu.
However, using a network port implies security risks. You should think about proper counter-measures first if you want to lean on “remote-viewer”. Once configured in the way described above there is no libvirt-layer or anything else which may hinder ambitious attackers to analyze the unencrypted data flow between the Spice client and the VM through the host’s network port.

In the next article

KVM/Qemu VMs with a multi-screen Spice console – III – local access with remote-viewer via a Unix socket

I want to show you how one can configure the VM such that remote-viewer can access the Spice console via a local Unix port. A network port is not opened in this approach. Security is none the less hampered a bit as we have to give a standard user some rights which normally only the “qemu” group has. But we shall take care of this aspect by using ACLs.

Links

Virtualization on Opensuse
https://doc.opensuse.org/ documentation/ leap/ virtualization/ single-html/ book.virt/index.html

Libvirtd daemon
https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/8-libvirtd/

Libvirt connection URIs
https://libvirt.org/uri.html

Find the Spice URI to use
https://access.redhat.com/ documentation/ en-us/ red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/ html/ virtualization_deployment_and_ administration_guide/ sect-Domain_Commands- Displaying_a_URI_ for_connection_to_a_graphical_display

TLS disabled
https://unix.stackexchange.com/ questions/ 148794/ how-to-create-kvm-guest-with-spice-graphics-but-tls-disabled-using-virt-install

General Kali installation
https://www.cyberpratibha.com/blog/how-to-update-and-upgrade-kali-linux-to-latest-version/

KDE, XFCE on Kali
https://technicalnavigator.in/kde-vs-xfce-which-one-is-better/