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We've been using KVM for almost a year strictly on CentOS 5.x as the KVM host, with Fedora and Ubuntu workstations accessing the KVM host and its guests using virt-manager, virt-viewer, and ssh.

Is anyone aware of a way to access the KVM host using virt-manager from a Windows workstation? We have one co-worker who would like to access the KVM host, from a Win7 system.

EDIT #1

I'm familiar with running a X11 server on windows such as Xming, and remote displaying virt-manager from the KVM host to a windows workstation, but what I'd really like here is to know of any solutions native to windows, i.e. is there a version of virt-manager that'll run on windows.

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Use putty and some X Server software on the Windows side (e.g. Xming) and use X11 tunneling with putty to display the remote virt-manager console.

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I would simply use ssh (putty) and virsh, and a VNC/Spice client, if I were confined to a Windows workstation

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I'm not that familiar with Spice. Can you explain what Spice is and is there a Spice client available for windows? I found this link, linux-kvm.org/page/SPICE, which shows how to set it up, but it doesn't really explain the benefits of Spice vs. VNC. – slm Dec 14 '11 at 18:40
I also found this link to the Spice Project. Still don't quite entirely grasp exactly where it fits. I think that it provides a native graphics driver for the guests, but that's as far as I've gotten in my understanding. – slm Dec 14 '11 at 18:59
Spice performs better and delivers a much better (actually, at the level of a normal, non-3D video card, meaning you can watch movies and youtube flicks, play non-3D games etc.) performance than VNC. Clients are available from several platforms. You have to start the VM with Spice support and install a Spice driver in the VM of course. At the moment, RHEL5 and higher and Fedora 14 and higher both have native support for Spice – dyasny Dec 14 '11 at 20:12
Curious, can the Spice driver be used for the KVM host itself or is it limited to KVM guests only? – slm Dec 15 '11 at 5:37
Spice is built into qemu, so currently it can only be used with KVM guests – dyasny Dec 15 '11 at 9:36
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