Is there a way to use Xen VMs with non-US keyboards at the console in a convenient way? I read somewhere in the documentation that only US-English keyboards are supported in the Xen console, but there's more to this. I would imagine that I then can type a character that is on a different key in the US-English layout from my German layout by using the key where it is on the US-English keyboard. For instance use y for z. That's how it would work on a normal console. But with the VM it's completely different and some characters cannot be typed *at all*. For instance, I cannot type the / or - characters (depending on what layout I choose: de (any) will prohibit me to type -, while us will prohibit me to type /. On the other hand when I type y I get a y. I assume the reason for this must be that the keyboard layout of the host machine is de as well. If I changed that to US-English I might be able to type and get what I expected. But I really don't want to change the main keyboard layout. Has anyone found a way to cope with this, so one could at least type all characters? The only way I can use Xen VMs at the moment seems to be to install them and then connect via ssh.
Kai
I'm seeing the same problems on Fedora 6+7. I don't think there is a real solution (btw: using a German keyboard layout, shift+6 gives me "/" in the graphical vnc console). I use SSH for virtual console management as much as possible.
fs
Felix Schwarz wrote on Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:22:22 +0200:
I'm seeing the same problems on Fedora 6+7. I don't think there is a real solution (btw: using a German keyboard layout, shift+6 gives me "/" in the graphical vnc console).
Thanks for confirmation. Yeah, I can get "/" this way, but I can't get "-" and "*" which means I can't add any options to command lines or do wildcards. It's pretty useless this way. You can't even handle filenames with a "-" in them. I work around this by using single "?" in filenames as I can create at least this. On the other hand if I switch to US keyboard layout I can get at * and - and ?, but not at /. Grrrrr.
I use SSH for virtual console management as much as
possible.
Yes, this seems the only workable solution. Unfortunately, you are also restricted to the "-"-less strings when you install it :-(
Kai
On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 18:26 +0200, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Felix Schwarz wrote on Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:22:22 +0200:
<snip>
I use SSH for virtual console management as much as
possible.
Yes, this seems the only workable solution. Unfortunately, you are also restricted to the "-"-less strings when you install it :-(
Why don't you use `xm console` instead of using vfb ? See the link i posted as well for information here regarding 'funny keyboard' problem in xen DomU : http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2153
If they're all on the same machine and you're not using certificates for your authentication then why not use telnet and eliminate the overhead of ssh? If you want to go graphical load up an xserver on your machine and launch whatever app you want to run on the remote system.
Geoff
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
-----Original Message----- From: Fabian Arrotin fabian.arrotin@arrfab.net
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:01:39 To:CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Subject: Re: [CentOS] Using XEN VMs with non-US keyboards?
On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 18:26 +0200, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
Felix Schwarz wrote on Sat, 13 Oct 2007 23:22:22 +0200:
<snip>
I use SSH for virtual console management as much as
possible.
Yes, this seems the only workable solution. Unfortunately, you are also restricted to the "-"-less strings when you install it :-(
Why don't you use `xm console` instead of using vfb ? See the link i posted as well for information here regarding 'funny keyboard' problem in xen DomU : http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2153
-
Fabian Arrotin -
Felix Schwarz -
gjgowey＠tmo.blackberry.net -
Kai Schaetzl