KSol Pve VNC Proxy

This is a Proxmox Vnc Websocket proxy to allow plain vnc connections to your virtual machines on demand. It is api compatible to the json api of Proxmox VE.

Installation

There are three ways to install this piece of software.

Installation via apt repo

Step 1: Install apt-transport-https

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

Step 2: Import the gpg key

curl https://apt.ksol.it/ksol.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add

Step 3: Add the repo to your sources.list.d

echo "deb https://apt.ksol.it/deb /" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-ksol.list

Step 4: Apt update

sudo apt update

Step 5: Install package ksol-pve-vnc-proxy

sudo apt install ksol-pve-vnc-proxy

Step 6: Check the configuration if there are any changes nescessary.

cat /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/appsettings.json

Manual .deb install

Step 1: Download the latest .deb from the releases section.

wget https://github.com/mKenfenheuer/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/releases/download/1.x/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy_1.1638105333_amd64.deb

Step 2: Install the package via dpkg

sudo dpkg -i ksol-pve-vnc-proxy_1.1638105333_amd64.deb

Step 3: Check the configuration if there are any changes nescessary.

cat /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/appsettings.json

Installation from source

Step 1: Make sure you have all nescessary dependencies for the installation available.

Dependency	Required	Description	Version	Link
git	optional	Used to get the source code. Can also be downloaded as .zip but this is not covered in this guide.	2+	Packages
.Net Core SDK	required	Framework used to compile the application	5.0+	Download

Step 2: Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/mKenfenheuer/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.git

Step 3: Build the source code into a self contained application for distribution

cd ksol-pve-vnc-proxy
dotnet publish --self-contained -c release -r linux-x64 *.sln

Step 4: Copy the compiled application to a path of your choice and make it executable:

cp ./bin/Release/net5.0/linux-x64/publish/ /usr/share/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/
chmod +x /usr/share/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/KSol_PVE_VNC_Proxy

Step 5: Copy the config file to the respective config directory /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/

cp ./bin/Release/net5.0/linux-x64/publish/appsettings.json /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/appsettings.json

Step 6: Edit the paths to the certificate files in the config file, you can also use other certificates. By default we are using the same certificate as Proxmox VE.

An easy way to point to the correct certificates, assuming the software is installed directly onto the node:

HOSTNAME=$(cat /etc/hostname)
sed -i "s/{PVE_NODE_HOSTNAME}/$HOSTNAME/g" /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/appsettings.json

This replaces the term {PVE_NODE_HOSTNAME} with the node hostname in the config file.

Step 7: Copy the start script to /usr/bin/ and make it executable.

cp /Packaging/debian/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.sh /usr/bin/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy
chmod +x /usr/bin/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy

Step 8: Copy the systemd service file for the application to /etc/systemd/system/

cp ./Packaging/debian/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.service /etc/systemd/system/

Step 8: Reload the systemd configuration and enable the service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.service

Step 9: Start the systemd service.

sudo service ksol-pve-vnc-proxy start
sudo service ksol-pve-vnc-proxy status

It should output the following:

● ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.service - KSol PVE VNC Proxy
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2021-11-28 15:54:02 CET; 3s ago
   Main PID: 3371199 (ksol-pve-vnc-pr)
      Tasks: 32 (limit: 86670)
     Memory: 34.7M
        CPU: 396ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy.service
             ├─3371199 /bin/sh /usr/bin/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy
             └─3371201 /usr/share/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy/KSol_PVE_VNC_Proxy

Nov 28 15:54:02 SSTG4400 systemd[1]: Started KSol PVE VNC Proxy.
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]: info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]:       Now listening on: https://0.0.0.0:5001
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]: info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]:       Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]: info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]:       Hosting environment: Production
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]: info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
Nov 28 15:54:03 SSTG4400 ksol-pve-vnc-proxy[3371201]:       Content root path: /etc/ksol-pve-vnc-proxy

How does it work?

The proxy server api listens by default on https://0.0.0.0:5001. This means if your ip address of your Proxmox VE host is 192.168.1.20 you would want to access the proxy server at https://192.168.1.20:5001/.

There is the following api call available:

GET /api2/json/nodes/{node}/{type}/{id}/plainvncproxy

Parameters:

Parameter	Description
{node}	The node name on which the resource is running
{type}	The resource type, likely qemu or lxc
{id}	The resource id of the virtual machine

Authentication:

Authentication information to the service is pass-through, meaning there is no authentication and authorization checks performed by this proxy. This is done by the Proxmox VE host api. Therefore you will need to send the same authentication information, in the same form to this proxy as if you would do to the Proxmox api.

HTTP-Header	Description
Cookie: PVEAuthCookie=XXXX	The PVE auth cookie obtained by logging in to the api.
CSRFPreventionToken	The CSRFPreventionToken obtained by logging in to the api.

Response:

The api will respond to your query with the following json response, which is the same to the Proxmox VE Api:

{
    "statusCode": 200,      // Status code, 200 if succeded
    "errorMessage": {},     // Error message, null if succeded
    "responsePayload": {    // VNC Connection details, null if an error ocurred
        "upid": "",         // Proxmox Console Task ID 
        "user": "",         // User and realm for which the vnc console is started. 
        "port": ,           // VNC Port on which the proxy is listening 
        "ticket": "",       // VNC Ticket, use as password to login
    },
    "isSuccess": true       // Success indicator, false if there was an error
}

You can then use the information to make a vnc connection to the Proxmox VE host. Assuming you received the same information as above (port 5900) and the ip address of your Proxmox VE host is 192.168.1.20 you would want to access the vnc server at vnc://192.168.1.20:5900/. Then on connection, use the vnc ticket as password.