RFE: support SPICE webdav folder sharing

[crobinso]

Originally filed here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1444637

There's been several requests to support SPICE webdav folder sharing in virt-manager. There's been patches posted too, and discussion:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/virt-tools-list/2020-July/msg00111.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/virt-tools-list/2020-August/msg00010.html

I'm still undecided on it. This feature requires non-default config changes, non-default guest packages, and it's undetermined if the UI can detect if the necessary config is in place to warn the user or not (there's a suggestion in how to do that in the thread but no one has confirmed yet). I'm worried that it may cause confusion with things like virtio-fs which users are increasingly looking for too. Many unknowns IMO.

The bugzilla entry has a suggestion to stash the UI on the webdav channel page which I kinda like, because it will only be visible if the user already opted in to enable that device. So that's one possible 'improvement'

[Enerccio]

this STILL isn't supported? ???

[Francewhoa]

For interested contributors to Virt-Manager who are not familiar with the SPICE WebDAV project, during your Discovery/research, the following links might be useful:

• Documentation about SPICE client folder sharing
• To enable the folder sharing in the Windows guest you need this SPICE WebDAV daemon
• SPICE tickets/issues

Related email at https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=spice-devel@lists.freedesktop.org&q=subject:%22Re%5C%3A+%5C%5BSpice%5C-devel%5C%5D+Unable+to+share+files+from+windows+guest+to+the+host%22&o=newest&f=1

[jukefr]

I was a bit confused because on https://virt-manager.org/ it says that its based on virt-viewer and virt-viewer just supports this out of the box but apparently not the virt-manager version so for now I just run virt-viewer directly which feel weird but 🤷

[jtojnar]

@jukefr The website says virt-viewer is a supporting application, not that virt-manager is based on it. Both are front-ends for libvirt using spice-gtk or gtk-vnc for viewing the screen but they are independent. Supporting just means that the scope is limited, see the design document.

[2507038969]

Hello,

Does anyone have the same problem of virt viewer's folder sharing from windows client to windows guest? I used virt-viewer running on both linux and windows client to connect to the guest (of windows 10). I did create spiceport channel for folder sharing and install webdavd in guest and the webdav service running ok. Now the folder sharing function works fine for virt-viewer on linux client, but for virt-viewer on windows client, the menu of "File"-"Preferences" of folder sharing is greyed out. The windows virt-viewer is downloaded from virt-manager download page.(http://virt-manager.org/download). Please tell me what to do to enable this menu for windows client if somebody can help?

thanks!

Best Regards,