Correct way to configure Spice on guest

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Hello everyone!

I am running into a situation where, whatever it seems I do, I break my Guest Kali (KDE version) sizing and scaling using Spice-vdagent. The clipboard and drag and drop continue to work.

Here is some information:

HOST: EndeavourOS with KDE-Plasma (wayland)
Virtualization: QEMU/KVM + Virt-manager
GUEST-VM: Kali, fresh-install with KDE-Plasma (X11).

Next steps sudo apt install -y spice-vdagent > sudo systemctl start spice-vdagent >
and I’ve edited the /usr/lib/systemd/user/plasma-core.target, where I added ‘spice-vdagentd.service’ to the ‘wants=’ line.

After these steps, and a reboot! The sizing works fine, drap and drop work, and the clipboard as well. YAY so I snapshotted this machine (running)

BUT as soon as I turn off the machine for a next time it does the following:

  • In virt-manager hardware, sets video model to QXL
  • Resizing stops working

Then I try to use xrandr –output Virtual-1 –auto which resizes the screen, but the mouse-cursor positioning is all off!
Another weird thing that happens, is that when I log out of the session, the login screen shows the right size and scale, but it breaks again after logging in?

So what do I do wrong?
If I can provide more output from any settings, I’d be happy to, but I am not sure which would be interesting.

Here is the status:

● spice-vdagentd.service - Agent daemon for Spice guestsLoaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/spice-vdagentd.service; static)Active: active (running) since Sat 2025-09-27 14:57:28 CEST; 13min agoInvocation: 4340ce2a6514475bb689126fa8ca27f3TriggeredBy: ● spice-vdagentd.socketDocs: man:spice-vdagentd(1)Main PID: 1691 (spice-vdagentd)Tasks: 3 (limit: 19036)Memory: 796K (peak: 1.7M)CPU: 427msCGroup: /system.slice/spice-vdagentd.service└─1691 /usr/sbin/spice-vdagentd -x

Sep 27 14:57:28 s-kali systemd[1]: Started spice-vdagentd.service - Agent daemon for Spice guests.Sep 27 14:57:28 s-kali (vdagentd)[1691]: spice-vdagentd.service: Referenced but unset environment variabl>Sep 27 14:57:28 s-kali spice-vdagentd[1691]: opening vdagent virtio channelSep 27 14:57:28 s-kali spice-vdagentd[1691]: Set max clipboard: 104857600Sep 27 14:57:28 s-kali spice-vdagentd[1691]: Set max clipboard: 104857600Sep 27 15:11:03 s-kali spice-vdagentd[1691]: Set max clipboard: 104857600

So at the beginning:

  • auto-start works
  • resizing works
  • clipboard works
  • drag and drops works
  • Mouse-cursor position works.

after rebooting, the resizing and mouse-cursor positioning breaks.

Thank you for your time.

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For now it seems the workaround is to use the Gnome version of Kali.

I haven’t had much time, nor do I have the knowledge to figure this out (I’m not strong in the programming department, and I lack knowledge about the innerworkings of linux display, X11 events, and the grabbing of resizing signals etc etc etc).

Would be great if someone smarter than me could answer in the meantime.
If I come across a solution I’ll put the answer here :slight_smile: