[PVE-User] Doing without the Java console

[Martin Maurer]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pve-user-bounces at pve.proxmox.com [mailto:pve-user-
> bounces at pve.proxmox.com] On Behalf Of Flavio Stanchina
> Sent: Dienstag, 21. Februar 2012 21:33
> To: pve-user at pve.proxmox.com
> Subject: [PVE-User] Doing without the Java console
> 
> I'd like to know how the Proxmox VE developers feel about making it
> possible to work with PVE without the Java VNC console. I'll spare you all the
> technical and ethical reasons why I would prefer to get rid of Java on my
> machines, but there are three that I just can't bear:
[Martin Maurer] 
We evaluated a lot of solutions and the java is so far the best for our needs - works great on windows which is 90 % of the desktop market, and works also on Linux and Mac. We will also integrate spice, as soon as this is stable as announced in the roadmap. It's not only the remote protocol, there is a lot behind, e.g. authentication and security - we invested a lot of time to get all this running for VNC console for 2.0.

> 1) Java is not Free Software, no matter what they say, so it's the only non-
> free component in an otherwise fully free infrastructure (and please don't
> mention OpenJDK and IcedTea, it just doesn't work well enough to replace
> the Sun^WOracle JRE).
> 2) the Java plugin has a history of being unsafe, so I'd rather just get rid of it.
> 3) the Oracle lawsuit against Google.
[Martin Maurer] 
We do not want to comment such lawsuits, it's not our business.

> 
> Moreover, the PVE console eats some keys on PVE 2.0, for example the TAB
> key. I hope this can be fixed, but if it can't it's one more reason to have
> another option.
[Martin Maurer] 
This is browser issue, not seen on windows and on newer linux desktops. For other, there is a workaround. See https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=16

> 
> I see a few alternatives which would be relatively easy to do, listed in order
> of preference:
> * add an option to open the VNC console of a VM (with proper authorization
> of course) on a specified port; I've done this with a few entries in
> /etc/inetd.conf on PVE 1.x, as suggested in a forum post, but IIRC it doesn't
> work with PVE 2.0 (I think I tried to debug why but didn't get to the bottom
> of it).
> * enable Spice; I tried building a qemu-kvm package with Spice enabled, then
> added the proper options to the VM config and it works, but in a production
> environment I'd want support out of the box.
> * use the gtk-vnc plugin where available; not mature, not available
> everywhere, but it works and making it better is not a hard problem.
> 
> Of course I want ALL OF THEM! :)
[Martin Maurer] 
Yes, and think what you can do make it happen. I am personally not the biggest fan of replacing an already working system or reinventing something. Our console works great for the majority since 4 years, so the pressure to change this is not that high so far.

Martin

> 
> --
> Flavio Stanchina
> Informatica e Servizi
> Trento - Italy
> 
> Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
> -- Henry Spencer
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