virtkvm

virtkvm is the poor man's KVM switch for libvirt and VFIO users. It can attach/detach a set of USB devices to/from a libvirt virtual machine and switch monitor inputs through DDC/CI. The toggle mechanism can be triggered with a simple request to its HTTP server.

Setup

After installing the package, you should create a configuration file to specify the libvirt settings, HTTP server settings, USB device list and display list. An example configuration file is provided here: example_config.yaml.

Virtkvm depends on ddcutil to do the switching of the display inputs, so that utility needs to be available in PATH.

Usage

Virtkvm should run on the host machine and can be started as follows:

usage: virtkvm [-h] --config CONFIG

The poor man's KVM switch for libvirt and VFIO users

optional arguments:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  --config CONFIG  the YAML configuration file (default: None)

Toggling the KVM

The KVM can be toggled with an HTTP request:

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'X-Secret: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' -d '{"to": "host"}' http://192.168.100.1:5001/switch

On Windows, Powershell can be used to send a request to switch the KVM back to the host:

Invoke-RestMethod -Method POST -Uri "http://192.168.100.1:5000/switch" -Headers @{"X-Secret" = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"} -Body "{`"to`": `"host`"}" -ContentType "application/json"

You could also add this as a shortcut to your AutoHotkey script. The following will toggle the KVM when Win+Shift+~ is pressed:

#+~::
Run, PowerShell -WindowStyle Hidden "Invoke-RestMethod -Method POST -Uri 'http://192.168.100.1:5000/switch' -Headers @{'X-Secret' = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'} -Body '{\"to\": \"host\"}' -ContentType 'application/json'"