Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Add documentation for VNC support in ECOs
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Signed-off-by: Paul Gaiduk <paulg@zededa.com>
  • Loading branch information
europaul committed Apr 5, 2024
1 parent 888bc6e commit 7d949cd
Showing 1 changed file with 22 additions and 0 deletions.
22 changes: 22 additions & 0 deletions docs/VNC.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
# VNC

There is an option to connect to every ECOs UI via VNC.
To enable it, the flag [EnableVnc](https://github.com/lf-edge/eve-api/blob/a2b011fedf87918e924bf11b5be3216b3d5d13a8/go/config/vm.pb.go#L121) needs to be set in the respective EdgeAppConfig.

The VNC support is built into the KVM/QEMU hypervisor and is available for all types of ECOs.
However there is a special case for the container applications: the flag `EnableVnc` let's the user connect to the container's UI via VNC, however if the user wants to be able to connect to the shim VM as well, the flag [EnableVncShimVm](https://github.com/lf-edge/eve-api/blob/a2b011fedf87918e924bf11b5be3216b3d5d13a8/go/config/vm.pb.go#L141) needs to be set additionally.
Please note that `EnableVncShimVm` can only be activated if `EnableVnc` is set to true.
If both flags (`EnableVnc` and `EnableVncShimVm`) are enabled the user will be able to switch between the container and the shim VM session by pressing a key combination.

## Guacamole

EVE has a [guacamole](https://guacamole.apache.org/) server running as a service, which allows the user to connect to the ECOs via a web browser.
Alternatively to connecting over guacamole, the user can configure the forwarding of the VNC port to the host machine and connect to the ECOs via a VNC client.

## Switching between the container and the shim VM session

When connecting to the QEMU instance via VNC the user will first be presented with a view of the currently running process (container's entry point).
To switch to the shell of the shim VM the user will have to press 'Ctrl+Alt+2' and then 'Enter' to get the login prompt.
Due to inability of some VNC clients to change the resolution of the display, the client might crash.
However upon the client restart the new virtual console will appear as expected.
The user can then switch back to the previous virtual console by pressing 'Ctrl+Alt+1'.

0 comments on commit 7d949cd

Please sign in to comment.