PLAN: the KVM tab shipped

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Mitchell-Johnson
2026-09-24 16:43:44 -07:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 823c72122c
commit 70fcf86283
+28 -33
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@@ -320,6 +320,34 @@ something long in one, switch away and back, refresh — it's all still there.
snapshot, the package is purged and the old cron line is gone, with the 515 snapshots it snapshot, the package is purged and the old cron line is gone, with the 515 snapshots it
had taken left untouched and fully readable here — which is what adopting its naming had taken left untouched and fully readable here — which is what adopting its naming
bought. See `hamlet/docs/hosts.md`. bought. See `hamlet/docs/hosts.md`.
- **KVM tab** — **shipped 2026-09-24** (`internal/api/kvm.go`, `KVM.tsx`, `config.KVM`).
Paste a device's address; its own web page appears in the tab. **Nothing in it knows
anything about any particular KVM** — the first device here is a Sipeed NanoKVM on `grid`
at `10.0.0.217`, but none of that is in the code.
**Why it proxies rather than framing the device directly.** Ham Lab is served over TLS and
a KVM usually is not, so a bare `http://…` iframe is blocked as mixed content before it
loads. Serving the device from Ham Lab's own origin (`/kvm/<id>/…`) fixes that, puts it
behind **Ham Lab's** login rather than a second one, and makes the iframe same-origin.
**The general problem, and the answer.** A device UI asks for its assets by absolute path
— `/assets/app.js`, `/api/whatever` — which no path prefix can rewrite away, and rewriting
bodies per device would not be general. So the prefix is only the entry point: any request
Ham Lab does not serve itself is routed to whichever KVM the asking page belongs to, read
from the **Referer**, falling back to a **cookie** when there is none (a WebSocket upgrade).
Ham Lab's own routes always match first, so a device can never shadow the console, and the
fallback is gated on a live session. The device never receives Ham Lab's session cookie,
and its `X-Frame-Options`/CSP/HSTS are dropped on the way out since Ham Lab is the origin
now. Redirects to the device's root are rewritten back through the prefix.
**One catch found in testing:** Ham Lab's own `frame-ancestors 'none'` forbids framing even
from the same origin, so `/kvm/` paths send `'self'` instead. Without that the iframe was
refused before it loaded.
**The keyboard** needs less than it sounds: a page cannot forward keys into an iframe and
does not need to, since one with focus receives them directly. Fullscreen plus
`navigator.keyboard.lock()` is what takes Escape, Tab and Ctrl-W back from the browser;
that is Chromium-only, and the tab says which version you are getting rather than
pretending. The list is **hub-side** on purpose — a KVM earns its keep when the machine is
down, which is when that machine's own Ham Lab cannot answer — and a KVM need not belong to
a machine Ham Lab manages at all. Not done: holding the device's own login on the hub, so
its page does not ask for a second password.
- **Skins** — 13 since 2026-09-19 (`themes.ts`: a palette is one `mk(…)` line): Dark, - **Skins** — 13 since 2026-09-19 (`themes.ts`: a palette is one `mk(…)` line): Dark,
Light, Cyberpunk, Retro, **HUD** (hairlines of cyan on near-black, corner ticks, thin Light, Cyberpunk, Retro, **HUD** (hairlines of cyan on near-black, corner ticks, thin
type), Nord, Gruvbox, Catppuccin + Latte, Dracula, Tokyo Night, Solarized Dark + Light; type), Nord, Gruvbox, Catppuccin + Latte, Dracula, Tokyo Night, Solarized Dark + Light;
@@ -585,39 +613,6 @@ something long in one, switch away and back, refresh — it's all still there.
`internal/term`); snapshots and clones; and what it does on a host with no virtualisation `internal/term`); snapshots and clones; and what it does on a host with no virtualisation
at all, which is every host here today. Worth scoping as its own plan before starting. at all, which is every host here today. Worth scoping as its own plan before starting.
- **A KVM tab** — asked for 2026-09-24, not started. **Dead simple is the brief**: paste one
HTTP link, the tab shows whatever UI that KVM serves, and the keyboard goes to it. **This
is KVM the keyboard-video-mouse switch, not KVM the hypervisor** — the Virtualization item
above means the other one.
- **The device**: a **Sipeed NanoKVM** attached to `grid` at **`10.0.0.217`** (MAC
`48:da:35:6f:d0:31`), web UI on port 80. The only one so far, so store a list, not one URL.
- **Framing works.** Probed 2026-09-24: it sends **no `X-Frame-Options` and no
`frame-ancestors`**, so it does not refuse to be embedded. No fallback needed.
- **Proxy it through the daemon — that is what makes the simple version possible.** The
KVM is **HTTP only**, and Ham Lab is served over TLS, so a bare `http://…` iframe is
blocked as mixed content and the "just paste a link" idea dies there. Serving it from Ham
Lab's own origin (`/api/kvm/<id>/…`, on the `proxyNode` machinery, which already carries
WebSockets — exactly what the video and input streams are) fixes three things at once:
no mixed content, the KVM sits behind **Ham Lab's** login rather than a second one
(`/api/vm/info` answers 401, so it has its own, which the hub can hold once), and the
iframe becomes **same-origin**, which matters for the keyboard below.
- **The keyboard needs less than it sounds.** A parent page *cannot* capture keys and
forward them into a **cross-origin** iframe — the browser forbids synthetic events across
origins — but it does not need to: an iframe with focus receives keystrokes directly, and
the NanoKVM's own page already handles them. So "capture and give it to the iframe" is
really: click-to-focus, keep focus there, and stop the console's own shortcuts from
eating keys while it is focused. What is genuinely worth adding is **fullscreen** plus
`navigator.keyboard.lock()`, which is what stops the *browser* swallowing Escape, Tab and
Ctrl-W so they reach the guest — note it is Chromium-only, so Firefox and iOS Safari get
the plain version. Proxying makes the iframe same-origin anyway, so real forwarding stays
available if some KVM ever needs it.
- **Where the list lives is the one real design decision.** A KVM earns its keep when the
machine is *down* — no OS, a bad kernel, a BIOS screen — which is when that host's Ham Lab
cannot answer. So it is **hub-side** and must work for machines running no Ham Lab at all.
A `kvm_url` in each node's own `config.json` would fail in exactly the case it is for.
- **Do not give it an NPM host** without deciding to: `*.bigham.dev` is a wildcard to the
public IP, so that would put BIOS-level control of `grid` on the internet behind only the
KVM's own login. Behind Ham Lab's proxy it inherits Ham Lab's auth instead.
## Open questions ## Open questions