Step-by-Step Guide to Open Proxmox VMs Using SPICE and Remote-Viewer

Published on May 24, 2023
By adrian

When it comes to managing remote virtual machines (VMs), employing SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments) can yield significant advantages over default solutions. These include:

  • Enhanced Graphical Performance: SPICE excels in delivering superior graphical performance, particularly for VMs running visually intensive applications. This leads to a more responsive and smoother user experience.
  • Broadened Functionality: Unlike many standard solutions, SPICE supports audio, video, and device forwarding. This broadens its range of use-cases, providing a more immersive and comprehensive remote access experience.
  • Optimized Performance: SPICE utilizes adaptive graphics compression and a suite of smart optimizations. This results in a more fluid and responsive system that performs well, even over connections with limited bandwidth.

And much more, including the ability to share clipboards between VMs. The steps below describe how to get remote-viewer up and running to easily load remote VMs using spice.

Configure Local and Remote Machines

  1. Create a Proxmox Virtual Machine (VM) as you would normally do, but ensure you use SPICE (Simple Protocol For Independent Computing Events) as the graphics card.
  2. Install the Remote Viewer using the following commands:
brew tap jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager
brew install virt-manager virt-viewer
  1. Run which remote-viewer. You should see /opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer as the output.
  2. Execute sudo apt install qemu-guest-agent -y to ensure you have the latest guest drivers installed.

Create a macOS Automator App

  1. Open the Automator App in macOS.
  2. Select “Application”.
  3. Search for Run Shell Script and drag that module over to the right.
  4. Paste the command /opt/homebrew/bin/remote-viewer "$@", set the shell to /bin/bash, and ensure that you are passing input as arguments.
  5. Save this Automator App as “pve-launcher” in the ~/Applications/ directory on your Mac.

Associate .vv Files

  1. In Proxmox, navigate to your VM. You’ll see NoVNC and SPICE.

The NoVNC is the default viewer that loads in a new window. Instead, click the console button, and a .vv file will download.

  1. Click on the pve-spice.vv file and press CMD + I.

  1. Set ‘Open With’ to pve-spice-launcher.app and then click on Change All.
  2. Instruct Chrome to automatically open these kinds of files. Click on the arrow and select Always Open Files of This Type.

Now, whenever you press the console

button in Proxmox, it will automatically open a connection. Enjoy your seamless remote management experience!

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