Keyboard problem when running VBox inside a vnc server

[christau]

Hi all,
i'm facing a weird problem.
I run the VirtualBox 2.1 (with a german WinXP guest) on a Kubuntu 8.04 with german locale settings.
If i start the VBox on my desktop everything works fine.
The problem occurs, when i do the following:
I start a vncserver with the following commandline

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Xvnc -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24 -rfbAuth vncpasswd :2

Then I start the VBox from the commandline as follows

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DISPLAY=:2 VBoxManage startvm myXP 

Then i connect myself to the vnc server by executing

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vncviewer :2

Now i can see the started VBox in my vnc session.
But the problem is: When i'm in the VBox, my keyboard layout is no longer german, it's english.
The weird thing is, if i start a xterm in the same vnc session, my keyboard layout is german. It's only english inside the VBox.
On the other hand, as i wrote, when i start the VBox directly on my desktop, everything works fine.
I checked the locale settings on my linux system, they are all 'de_DE.UTF-8'
I checked the locale settings on the winXP guest, they are all set to german (also the keyboard layout settings).

I hope, i could describe the problem as good as possible.
Can somebody explain to me, where the problem can be?
I just want to have a german keyboard layout when i run the VirtualBox inside a vncserver.

Many thanks in advance for any hints to a resolution!
Greetings, -chris-

[Sasquatch]

Check the VB log of the VM. It might give some information on why it reverts to the default US English layout.

[christau]

Hi Sasquatch,
thanks for your suggestion!
I compared the logfiles of the normally started xp guest and the one which i started inside the vnc server.
There are almost no differences (just a few differing addresses).
Also i couldn't determine from the logfile, if the VBox chose a german or a english keyboard driver.
The only thing that i found was:

03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/] (level 2)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/] (level 3)
03:08:08.216 Trusted <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/Config/] (level 4)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/LUN#0/] (level 4)
03:08:08.216 Driver <string> = "KeyboardQueue" (cch=14)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
03:08:08.216 QueueSize <integer> = 0x0000000000000040 (64)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/] (level 5)
03:08:08.216 Driver <string> = "MainKeyboard" (cch=13)
03:08:08.216
03:08:08.216 [/Devices/pckbd/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/] (level 6)
03:08:08.216 Object <integer> = 0x00000000082537b0 (136656816)

and this section showed no differences in the both log files except for the last four digits in the line

Object <integer> = 0x00000000082537b0

Any suggestion on where to look next?
Greetings, -chris-

[Sasquatch]

Try a different VNC server.

[christau]

I already did that, i tested all possible vnc servers for my ubuntu..
I guess it must be a problem of the VBox, because, as i described earlier, if i start a xterm inside the vncserver, i have the german keyboard layout. It's only wrong in VBox.
Greetings, -chris-

[christau]

Hi,
after some searching in the bugtracker of VBox, i stumbled upon this ticket.
There is suggested to start the VBox as follows:

LOG_KB_SECONDARY=1 VirtualBox -startvm <your VM name>

I did that and got the following message, when run normally (not in the vnc server)

...
Detected layout is "Germany", matches=48, seq=47
Finished mapping keyboard, matches=47, entries=48

If i did the same and started the VBox inside the vnc server, i got the following message:

Detected layout is "U.S. English", matches=47, seq=46
Finished mapping keyboard, matches=47, entries=48

Now i can be quite shure, that the VBox keyboard driver detects the wrong keyboard.
In this ticket, someone posted the source code of the keyboard driver.
I compiled this code and replaced the /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxKeyboard.so file. But it gave me a segfault after starting.
Anyway, i guess this keyboard driver is the spot where the layout is detected. I'll update this thread if i find a workable solution.

Greetings, -chris-

[christau]

Hi,
after some testing i managed to get the german keyboard layout in VBox.
I admit it's kind of hacky, but it works for this special requirement.
I checked out the sources for the keyboard detection of VBox.

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svn co http://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Frontends/VirtualBox/src/X11 X11

and changed the following line in the file keyboard-new.c

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return kbd_layout;

into

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return 98;

where 98 is the code for the german keyboard layout.
I compiled the library and copied it to /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxKeyboard.so

Since the keyboard layout of the vnc server is german too, i guess there's a problem with the keyboard layout detection in VBoxKeyboard.so.
Maybe someone can verify this and we can file a bug report on that.

Greetings, -chris-

[junior79]

Hi,

I have the same problem as above. Do anyone know the the code to the Swedish keyboard layout?

[stkris]

I had a small success adding additional keyboards to the XP installation using the language bar.

Host is debian squeeze, client is XP. And on the XP adding an additional "keyboard layout/IME" to the norwegian keyboard. The new layout would then be norwegian keyboard, US layout. When using that one the $ and \ keys work. But ÆØÅ does not. So it is a half baked solution.

Also my debian is installed with default language settings - only chose a norwegian keyboard during install.
The output from "locale -a" is
C
nb_NO.utf8
POSIX

I run virtualbox on my laptop, then use VBoxVRDP to start it, and rdesktop localhost:3389 to connect to the virtual XP machine.

[stkris]

I finally got it working - by starting rdesktop like this:

rdesktop -k no -f -x l VirtualXP

So I specify keyboard "no" and not "no-nb"

Now all keys work as they should. And I do not need the language bar hack any more.

[christau]

My suggestion with changing the VBoxKeyboard code was wrong, it didn't work for the OSE version.
A colleague suggested me to dump the xmodmap keymap and transfer it to the vncserver, like this:

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DISPLAY=:0 xmodmap -pke > /tmp/keymap.de
DISPLAY=:2 xmodmap /tmp/keymap.de

But this only worked on kubuntu with the realvnc server.
The same did not work on open suse.
Still a big mystery for me.

Greetings, -chris-