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feat: QEMU SPICE display and audio support #4479

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feat: QEMU SPICE display and audio support #4479

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket commented Dec 19, 2025

Adds SPICE protocol support for QEMU VMs. SPICE provides remote display with audio streaming, clipboard sharing, and optional OpenGL acceleration.

Changes:

  • qemu_driver.go - Detect SPICE in the display string, add audio backend args
  • qemu.go - Parse SPICE display options
  • qemu_test.go - Test cases for SPICE args
  • lima_yaml.go - Add video.spice config struct (audio, gl, agent bools)

Templates:

  • spice-audio.yaml: Minimal SPICE with audio
  • ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml: Full desktop with GL acceleration
  • ubuntu-desktop-simple.yaml: Cloud image + XFCE
  • ubuntu-desktop-iso.yaml: Installer ISO approach

@stuffbucket
feat: QEMU SPICE display and audio support
9337bf6 
- Add SPICEOptions to YAML schema (GL, streamingVideo, agent, audio)
- Detect SPICE audio configuration and route through spice audiodev
- Query SPICE port via QMP for display connection
- Add SPICE password change support via QMP
- Add unit tests for SPICE audio detection

Signed-off-by: stuffbucket <[email protected]>
@stuffbucket stuffbucket force-pushed the pr/qemu-spice-support branch from d90ead1 to 9337bf6 Compare December 19, 2025 03:20
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stuffbucket commented Dec 19, 2025

There is a trailing new line on the ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml template. I can resubmit the PR if you'd like. I tried to catch all the linting in the branch but this one got through. I don't want to trigger CI runners for a blank line at the end of the file unless that's what is desired (assuming the PR gets accepted).

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
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@AkihiroSuda AkihiroSuda Dec 19, 2025

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Seems too many templates; they could be consolidated with params?

lima/templates/docker.yaml

Lines 96 to 97 in cb0e125

param:
containerdSnapshotter: true

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@afbjorklund afbjorklund Dec 19, 2025 •
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I think we should only add the minimal template, the rest (ubuntu desktop) are better off downstream?

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket Dec 22, 2025

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That's fine with me. I can put them on my github page if folks are ok with that. I'm not sure what the convention is.

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
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ubuntu-desktop

This seems xubuntu, not ubuntu

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket Dec 22, 2025

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True. I wasn't sure if the naming convention should reflect Ubuntu or Xubuntu. I can change or reduce the number of templates and host them elsewhere. These were only intended as examples.

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
loadDotSSHPubKeys: true

firmware:
legacyBIOS: false
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@AkihiroSuda AkihiroSuda Dec 19, 2025

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Default configurations do not need to be copied

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml

ssh:
localPort: 0
loadDotSSHPubKeys: true
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Why?

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
mounts:
- location: "~"
- location: "/tmp/lima"
writable: true
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Why?

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml

cpus: 4
memory: "8GiB"
disk: "50GiB"
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Why not use the default values?
They are automatically adjusted depending on the amount of the host resources.

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket Dec 22, 2025

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I specified resources in the template so that it was clearer what a well performing VM with a full desktop would probably need. I've run the debian-trixie-plasma template on 2 vCPUS with less RAM. These could be removed or turned into a comment that points to the distro's resource suggestions.

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
This will take several minutes and the VM will reboot automatically.

After the VM reboots, connect to the SPICE display:
remote-viewer spice://127.0.0.1:5930
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Password?

like

lima/templates/experimental/vnc.yaml

Line 47 in cb0e125

* VNC Password: see <file://{{.Dir}}/vncpassword>

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As far as I can tell, the code is reusing the VNC password for the SPICE password.

We might want to make the messages and filenames more generic, some day?

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket Jan 2, 2026

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I didn't put any specific work into the VNC/SPICE password split. Is there something here that I need to fix?

AkihiroSuda
AkihiroSuda reviewed Dec 19, 2025
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templates/experimental/ubuntu-desktop-spice.yaml
macOS: brew install virt-viewer
Linux: sudo apt-get install virt-viewer

The desktop will auto-login as user: lima
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@AkihiroSuda AkihiroSuda Dec 19, 2025

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Why is the user name changed?

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@stuffbucket stuffbucket Jan 2, 2026

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That is a great question. I need to go take a look at that again.

@AkihiroSuda AkihiroSuda mentioned this pull request Dec 19, 2025
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afbjorklund commented Dec 19, 2025 •
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I'm getting an error from the message:

  Configuration:
    Display: {{.Video.Display}}
    Audio: SPICE streaming (enabled)

template: format:21:19: executing "format" at <.Video.Display>: can't evaluate field Video in type store.FormatData]

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afbjorklund commented Dec 19, 2025

Will need some better checking and reporting, right now the driver will crash with only a debug message.

"qemu[stderr]: qemu-system-x86_64: -audiodev spice,id=default: Parameter 'driver' does not accept value 'spice'"

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afbjorklund commented Dec 19, 2025

@stuffbucket the DCO will require you to use your real name for signing the commits:

Signed-off-by: stuffbucket <[email protected]>

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avoidik commented Dec 28, 2025 •
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what's the minimal qemu version for this feature? and what are supported host operating systems?

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stuffbucket commented Jan 2, 2026

what's the minimal qemu version for this feature? and what are supported host operating systems?

I was using QEMU 10.1.2 for testing (the latest version that homebrew would install at the time). Nothing special that I know of. I'm on Apple Silicon.

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stuffbucket commented Jan 2, 2026

I was focused on the other PR for VZ GUI, I'll start working on these comments now. Thanks for being patient.

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