How to use other hypervisors in CollabVM 1.2

Using other hypervisors in CollabVM 1.2.x is highly discouraged. You will face stability issues, and no support will be given.

If you ever find yourself following the instructions in this article, stop and take a moment to think about what you're doing.

In CollabVM version 1.2.x and below, it is possible to run other hypervisors or even connect to a physical machine that is not running QEMU. This comes with a several limitations.

• Vote for Resets and File Uploads are not possible in this mode.
• The collab-vm-server becomes a lot more unstable and can crash more frequently.
• If the VNC connection dies, it will need to be restarted manually.

How to do it:

• Create a text document somewhere with the name "run.sh" (if using Windows, run.bat), or whatever you prefer.
• In the text document, add the following command:

Linux/BSD: qemu-system-i386 -m 4 -no-shutdown -qmp unix:/tmp/collab-vm-qmp-customvm,server -nographic

Windows: "C:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-i386.exe" -m 4 -no-shutdown -qmp tcp::5800,server,nodelay -nographic

• • Replace "customvm" with whatever you set the "URL Name". For example, if you set the URL name to "vm1", then you would change the qmp command to "collab-vm-qmp-vm1,server".
• Make sure it is allowed to execute by running chmod +x run.sh.
• Start collab-vm-server.
• Make a VM like normal, but change the "VNC Address" to your desired VNC server. You can even hook it up to another IP outside of the localhost. This does not work if the VNC has a password so make sure it does not have a password.
• In the startup command, insert the location of your .sh file, e.g. if it is in your home, you could do ~/run.sh.
• Save the VM. Make sure Vote Resets and File Uploads are disabled.
• Start the VM.

If everything went well, you should have successfully connected. Most things will work in this - turns, homepage screenshots etc will work. Again, this is an unsupported method and we are not responsible for any instability it might cause.