----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Forrest" <nobozo@gmail.com> To: users@ovirt.org Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 5:06:56 PM Subject: [Users] How to See Ovirt Console From a Remote Windows Host
I know that this is simple for some of you, but I also know from Googling around that lots of people have had trouble seeing their ovirt console from a remote Windows host. Below I describe what finally worked for me. I hope this helps somebody avoid wasting as much time as I did today.
I'm a fairly experienced VMWare user who's learning ovirt. I just installed an all-in-one ovirt server and copied a CentOS 6.5 iso into it. I then tried to boot a new VM but soon learned that console access is different in ovirt than on VMWare.
I then spent over an hour trying the various documented ways to view a remote console using Spice on my Windows 7 desktop. I even tried using a Linux VM to see if the Firefox plugin for Spice would work. Nothing.
What finally worked was installing the virt-viewer Windows client (http://virt-manager.org/download/). Then, I opened the ovirt Administration Portal in Firefox running on my Windows 7 desktop. I created a new VM and configured it the way I wanted. Then, from the "Virtual Machines" tab, I started the new VM. Pretty soon the little console icon turned green so I clicked on it. I got the prompt from Firefox asking me what app I wanted to associate with the ".vv" URL that opened when I clicked on the console icon. I browsed around and selected
\Program Files\VirtViewer\bin\remote-viewer.exe
which is from the virt-viewer client package I installed above. I told Firefox to always use this app for this kind of file.
This works great! I was able to boot the CentOS system and install it with no problems.
Good luck! Jon Forrest
Thanks Jon for writing this. It's always useful for folks seeking help. Generally speaking, starting version 3.3 you should have HTML 5 support, which means a new tab will open with the VM's console. http://www.ovirt.org/Features/SpiceHTML5