OpenStack provides a number of different methods to interact with
your guests: VNC, SPICE, Serial, RDP or MKS. If configured, these can be
accessed by users through the OpenStack dashboard or the command line.
This document outlines how these different technologies can be
configured.

Overview

It is considered best practice to deploy only one of the consoles
types and not all console types are supported by all compute drivers.
Regardless of what option is chosen, a console proxy service is
required. These proxy services are responsible for the following:

• Provide a bridge between the public network where the clients live
  and the private network where the servers with consoles live.
• Mediate token authentication.
• Transparently handle hypervisor-specific connection details to
  provide a uniform client experience.

For some combinations of compute driver and console driver, these
proxy services are provided by the hypervisor or another service. For
all others, nova provides services to handle this proxying. Consider a
noVNC-based VNC console connection for example:

1. A user connects to the API and gets an access_url
   such as, http://ip:port/?path=%3Ftoken%3Dxyz.

2. The user pastes the URL in a browser or uses it as a client
   parameter.

3. The browser or client connects to the proxy.

4. The proxy authorizes the token for the user, and maps the token
   to the private host and port of the VNC server for an
   instance.

   The compute host specifies the address that the proxy should use to
   connect through the vnc.server_proxyclient_address option.
   In this way, the VNC proxy works as a bridge between the public network
   and private host network.

5. The proxy initiates the connection to VNC server and continues to
   proxy until the session ends.

This means a typical deployment with noVNC-based VNC consoles will
have the following components:

• One or more nova-novncproxy service. Supports browser-based
  noVNC clients. For simple deployments, this service typically runs on
  the same machine as nova-api because it operates as a proxy between
  the public network and the private compute host network.
• One or more nova-compute services. Hosts the instances for
  which consoles are provided.

This particular example is illustrated below.

noVNC-based VNC console

VNC is a graphical console with wide support among many hypervisors
and clients. noVNC provides VNC support through a web browser.

Configuration

To enable the noVNC VNC console service, you must configure both the
nova-novncproxy
service and the nova-compute service. Most options are defined in
the vnc
group.

The nova-novncproxy service accepts the following
options:

• daemon
• ssl_only
• source_is_ipv6
• cert
• key
• web
• console.ssl_ciphers
• console.ssl_minimum_version
• vnc.novncproxy_host
• vnc.novncproxy_port

If using the libvirt compute driver and enabling vnc-security, the following
additional options are supported:

• vnc.auth_schemes
• vnc.vencrypt_client_key
• vnc.vencrypt_client_cert
• vnc.vencrypt_ca_certs

For example, to configure this via a
nova-novncproxy.conf file:

[vnc]
novncproxy_host = 0.0.0.0
novncproxy_port = 6082

The nova-compute
service requires the following options to configure noVNC-based VNC
console support:

• vnc.enabled
• vnc.novncproxy_base_url
• vnc.server_listen
• vnc.server_proxyclient_address

If using the VMware compute driver, the following additional options
are supported:

• vmware.vnc_port
• vmware.vnc_port_total

For example, to configure this via a nova.conf file:

[vnc]
enabled = True
novncproxy_base_url = http://IP_ADDRESS:6082/vnc_auto.html
server_listen = 127.0.0.1
server_proxyclient_address = 127.0.0.1

Replace IP_ADDRESS with the IP address from which the
proxy is accessible by the outside world. For example, this may be the
management interface IP address of the controller or the VIP.

VNC proxy security

Deploy the public-facing interface of the VNC proxy with HTTPS to
prevent attacks from malicious parties on the network between the tenant
user and proxy server. When using HTTPS, the TLS encryption only applies
to data between the tenant user and proxy server. The data between the
proxy server and Compute node instance will still be unencrypted. To
provide protection for the latter, it is necessary to enable the
VeNCrypt authentication scheme for VNC in both the Compute nodes and
noVNC proxy server hosts.

QEMU/KVM Compute node
configuration

Ensure each Compute node running QEMU/KVM with libvirt has a set of
certificates issued to it. The following is a list of the required
certificates:

• /etc/pki/libvirt-vnc/server-cert.pem

  An x509 certificate to be presented by the VNC
  server. The CommonName should match the
  primary hostname of the compute node. Use of
  subjectAltName is also permitted if there is a need to use
  multiple hostnames or IP addresses to access the same Compute
  node.

• /etc/pki/libvirt-vnc/server-key.pem

  The private key used to generate the server-cert.pem
  file.

• /etc/pki/libvirt-vnc/ca-cert.pem

  The authority certificate used to sign server-cert.pem
  and sign the VNC proxy server certificates.

The certificates must have v3 basic constraints¹
present to indicate the permitted key use and purpose data.

We recommend using a dedicated certificate authority solely for the
VNC service. This authority may be a child of the master certificate
authority used for the OpenStack deployment. This is because libvirt
does not currently have a mechanism to restrict what certificates can be
presented by the proxy server.

For further details on certificate creation, consult the QEMU manual
page documentation on VNC server certificate setup².

Configure libvirt to enable the VeNCrypt authentication scheme for
the VNC server. In /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf, uncomment the following
settings:

• vnc_tls=1

  This instructs libvirt to enable the VeNCrypt authentication scheme
  when launching QEMU, passing it the certificates shown above.

• vnc_tls_x509_verify=1

  This instructs QEMU to require that all VNC clients present a valid
  x509 certificate. Assuming a dedicated certificate authority is used for
  the VNC service, this ensures that only approved VNC proxy servers can
  connect to the Compute nodes.

After editing qemu.conf, the libvirtd service must be
restarted:

$ systemctl restart libvirtd.service

Changes will not apply to any existing running guests on the Compute
node, so this configuration should be done before launching any
instances.

noVNC proxy server
configuration

The noVNC proxy server initially only supports the none
authentication scheme, which does no checking. Therefore, it is
necessary to enable the vencrypt authentication scheme by
editing the nova.conf
file to set.

[vnc]
auth_schemes=vencrypt,none

The vnc.auth_schemes values should be
listed in order of preference. If enabling VeNCrypt on an existing
deployment which already has instances running, the noVNC proxy server
must initially be allowed to use vencrypt and
none. Once it is confirmed that all Compute nodes have
VeNCrypt enabled for VNC, it is possible to remove the none
option from the list of the vnc.auth_schemes values.

At that point, the noVNC proxy will refuse to connect to any Compute
node that does not offer VeNCrypt.

As well as enabling the authentication scheme, it is necessary to
provide certificates to the noVNC proxy.

• /etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/client-cert.pem

  An x509 certificate to be presented to the VNC
  server. While libvirt/QEMU will not currently do any validation
  of the CommonName field, future versions will allow for
  setting up access controls based on the CommonName. The
  CommonName field should match the primary hostname
  of the controller node. If using a HA deployment, the
  Organization field can also be configured to a value that
  is common across all console proxy instances in the deployment. This
  avoids the need to modify each compute node’s whitelist every time a
  console proxy instance is added or removed.

• /etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/client-key.pem

  The private key used to generate the client-cert.pem
  file.

• /etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/ca-cert.pem

  The certificate authority cert used to sign
  client-cert.pem and sign the compute node VNC server
  certificates.

The certificates must have v3 basic constraints³
present to indicate the permitted key use and purpose data.

Once the certificates have been created, the noVNC console proxy
service must be told where to find them. This requires editing nova.conf to set.

[vnc]
vencrypt_client_key=/etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/client-key.pem
vencrypt_client_cert=/etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/client-cert.pem
vencrypt_ca_certs=/etc/pki/nova-novncproxy/ca-cert.pem

SPICE console

The VNC protocol is fairly limited, lacking support for multiple
monitors, bi-directional audio, reliable cut-and-paste, video streaming
and more. SPICE is a new protocol that aims to address the limitations
in VNC and provide good remote desktop support.

SPICE support in OpenStack Compute shares a similar architecture to
the VNC implementation. The OpenStack dashboard uses a SPICE-HTML5
widget in its console tab that communicates with the nova-spicehtml5proxy
service by using SPICE-over-websockets. The nova-spicehtml5proxy
service communicates directly with the hypervisor process by using
SPICE.

Configuration

To enable the SPICE console service, you must configure both the
nova-spicehtml5proxy service and the nova-compute service.
Most options are defined in the spice group.

The nova-spicehtml5proxy service accepts the following
options.

• daemon
• ssl_only
• source_is_ipv6
• cert
• key
• web
• console.ssl_ciphers
• console.ssl_minimum_version
• spice.html5proxy_host
• spice.html5proxy_port

For example, to configure this via a
nova-spicehtml5proxy.conf file:

[spice]
html5proxy_host = 0.0.0.0
html5proxy_port = 6082

The nova-compute
service requires the following options to configure SPICE console
support.

• spice.enabled
• spice.agent_enabled
• spice.html5proxy_base_url
• spice.server_listen
• spice.server_proxyclient_address

For example, to configure this via a nova.conf file:

[spice]
agent_enabled = False
enabled = True
html5proxy_base_url = http://IP_ADDRESS:6082/spice_auto.html
server_listen = 127.0.0.1
server_proxyclient_address = 127.0.0.1

Replace IP_ADDRESS with the IP address from which the
proxy is accessible by the outside world. For example, this may be the
management interface IP address of the controller or the VIP.

Serial

Serial consoles provide an alternative to graphical consoles like VNC
or SPICE. They work a little differently to graphical consoles so an
example is beneficial. The example below uses these nodes:

• controller node with IP 192.168.50.100
• compute node 1 with IP 192.168.50.104
• compute node 2 with IP 192.168.50.105

Here’s the general flow of actions:

1. The user requests a serial console connection string for an instance
   from the REST API.
2. The nova-api
   service asks the nova-compute service, which manages that instance,
   to fulfill that request.
3. That connection string gets used by the user to connect to the nova-serialproxy
   service.
4. The nova-serialproxy service then proxies the console
   interaction to the port of the compute node where the instance is
   running. That port gets forwarded by the hypervisor (or ironic
   conductor, for ironic) to the guest.

Configuration

To enable the serial console service, you must configure both the
nova-serialproxy
service and the nova-compute service. Most options are defined in
the serial_console group.

The nova-serialproxy service accepts the following
options.

• daemon
• ssl_only
• source_is_ipv6
• cert
• key
• web
• console.ssl_ciphers
• console.ssl_minimum_version
• serial_console.serialproxy_host
• serial_console.serialproxy_port

For example, to configure this via a
nova-serialproxy.conf file:

[serial_console]
serialproxy_host = 0.0.0.0
serialproxy_port = 6083

The nova-compute
service requires the following options to configure serial console
support.

• serial_console.enabled
• serial_console.base_url
• serial_console.proxyclient_address
• serial_console.port_range

For example, to configure this via a nova.conf file:

[serial_console]
enabled = True
base_url = ws://IP_ADDRESS:6083/
proxyclient_address = 127.0.0.1
port_range = 10000:20000

Replace IP_ADDRESS with the IP address from which the
proxy is accessible by the outside world. For example, this may be the
management interface IP address of the controller or the VIP.

There are some things to keep in mind when configuring these
options:

• serial_console.serialproxy_host is the
  address the nova-serialproxy service listens to for incoming
  connections.
• serial_console.serialproxy_port must be
  the same value as the port in the URI of serial_console.base_url.
• The URL defined in serial_console.base_url will form part
  of the response the user will get when asking for a serial console
  connection string. This means it needs to be an URL the user can connect
  to.
• serial_console.proxyclient_address will
  be used by the nova-serialproxy service to determine where to
  connect to for proxying the console interaction.

RDP

RDP is a graphical console primarily used with Hyper-V. Nova does not
provide a console proxy service for RDP – instead, an external proxy
service, such as the wsgate application provided by FreeRDP-WebConnect__, should be used.

Configuration

To enable the RDP console service, you must configure both a console
proxy service like wsgate and the nova-compute service. All options for the latter
service are defined in the rdp group.

Information on configuring an RDP console proxy service, such as
wsgate, is not
provided here. However, more information can be found at cloudbase.it__.

The nova-compute
service requires the following options to configure RDP console
support.

• rdp.enabled
• rdp.html5_proxy_base_url

For example, to configure this via a nova.conf file:

[rdp]
enabled = True
html5_proxy_base_url = https://IP_ADDRESS:6083/

Replace IP_ADDRESS with the IP address from which the
proxy is accessible by the outside world. For example, this may be the
management interface IP address of the controller or the VIP.

MKS

MKS is the protocol used for accessing the console of a virtual
machine running on VMware vSphere. It is very similar to VNC. Due to the
architecture of the VMware vSphere hypervisor, it is not necessary to
run a console proxy service.

Configuration

To enable the MKS console service, only the nova-compute service must
be configured. All options are defined in the mks group.

The nova-compute
service requires the following options to configure MKS console
support.

• mks.enabled
• mks.mksproxy_base_url

For example, to configure this via a nova.conf file:

[mks]
enabled = True
mksproxy_base_url = https://127.0.0.1:6090/

About nova-consoleauth

The now-removed nova-consoleauth service was previously used to
provide a shared service to manage token authentication that the client
proxies outlined below could leverage. Token authentication was moved to
the database in 18.0.0 (Rocky) and the service was removed in 20.0.0
(Train).

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: I want VNC support in the OpenStack dashboard. What
  services do I need?

  A: You need nova-novncproxy and correctly configured
  compute hosts.

• Q: My VNC proxy worked fine during my all-in-one test,
  but now it doesn’t work on multi host. Why?

  A: The default options work for an all-in-one install, but changes
  must be made on your compute hosts once you start to build a cluster. As
  an example, suppose you have two servers:

  PROXYSERVER (public_ip=172.24.1.1, management_ip=192.168.1.1)
  COMPUTESERVER (management_ip=192.168.1.2)

  Your nova-compute configuration file must set the
  following values:

  [vnc]
  # These flags help construct a connection data structure
  server_proxyclient_address=192.168.1.2
  novncproxy_base_url=http://172.24.1.1:6080/vnc_auto.html
  
  # This is the address where the underlying vncserver (not the proxy)
  # will listen for connections.
  server_listen=192.168.1.2

  Note

  novncproxy_base_url uses a public IP; this is the URL
  that is ultimately returned to clients, which generally do not have
  access to your private network. Your PROXYSERVER must be able to reach
  server_proxyclient_address, because that is the address
  over which the VNC connection is proxied.

• Q: My noVNC does not work with recent versions of web
  browsers. Why?

  A: Make sure you have installed python-numpy, which is
  required to support a newer version of the WebSocket protocol
  (HyBi-07+).

• Q: How do I adjust the dimensions of the VNC window image
  in the OpenStack dashboard?

  A: These values are hard-coded in a Django HTML template. To alter
  them, edit the _detail_vnc.html template file. The location
  of this file varies based on Linux distribution. On Ubuntu 14.04, the
  file is at
  /usr/share/pyshared/horizon/dashboards/nova/instances/templates/instances/_detail_vnc.html.

  Modify the width and height options, as
  follows:

  <iframe src="{{ vnc_url }}" width="720" height="430"></iframe>

• Q: My noVNC connections failed with ValidationError:
  Origin header protocol does not match. Why?

  A: Make sure the base_url match your TLS setting. If you
  are using https console connections, make sure that the value of
  novncproxy_base_url is set explicitly where the
  nova-novncproxy service is running.

References