[Fedora-xen] FYI switching VTs in guest framebuffer with virt-manager
A fair number of people have wondered how to switch virtual consoles in
guest framebuffer using virt-manager. The basic problem is that all
keystrokes need to be passed through to the guest & not interpreted by
the local host. This is a tricker problem than it sounds because while
you can grab the keyboard using XGrabKeyboard (or its GTK equiv), this
does not block VT switching. So with the recent release of 0.2.3 of
virt-manager I implemented a simple workaround. Here is a summary of
the behaviour in virt-manager now:
- In normal view keyboard grab is not activated - so regular window
manager key bindings will still be processed by your local X session
rather than the guest.
- In fullscreen view, keyboard grab is automatically activated (and
deactivated when switching back to normal view). So all keys will
be processed by the guest with exception of the Ctrl+Alt+XXX combos
- At any time 'sticky modifiers' can be activated. Press any modifier
key 3 times in a row, and it will 'stick' on until the next non-modifier
key is released. So, if you want to send Ctrl+Alt+F1 to the guest,
then you would type 'Ctrl Ctrl Ctrl Alt+F1'.
I've found the time '3 quick taps of Ctrl' quickly becomes second nature
& not nearly as tedious as it sounds - switching VTs is a fairly infrequent
operation after all.
Regards,
Dan.
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