I'm trying to share my clipboard between a linux host and a windows virtual machine using KDE Connect. Sadly neither is able to see the other in KDE connect.

Host and guest share a (virtual) network, but it is not the primary network (which provides internet connection).
Could I make this work somehow?

Well, KDE Connect is meant to connect actual devices (e.g. hardware), mainly a phone and a PC. Those need to be seen as actual hardware devices over a network, in most cases over Bluetooth.

A virtual machine acts exactly like a physical device on a network.
And connecting to devices via LAN is supported in KDE Connect (I can connect to my phone from both VM and host, neither of them have bluetooth).

I'm pretty sure the problem here is not that one device is virtual, but that they only share a secondary network. I'm guessing KDE Connect only scans the first network interface?

Is there any way to connect by IP from the linux and/or windows app?

Yeah, kdeconnect sort of needs one device to be a phone, it can work computer-to-computer, but I have had little luck with this over the past few years, despite the PCs seeing each other.

It is likely that the networking on the VM is using NAT,. You might try different settings for networking devices and see if it works differently. probably setting it up in Bridged mode.


Just tested with Linux to Linux (switching to bridged mode in the VM), the clipboard sharing works both ways in Virtualbox. I have zero clue if this is even supported in Windows.

Virtualbox supports sharing of clipboards without needing something like kdeconnect.
Might be a useful option.

Unfortunately bridge mode is incompatible with network manager.
My current setup uses macvtap and I've not found a working alternative.
To clarify my point, this is my routing setup:

I would like to connect my devices on the isolated network (192.168.100.*), but KDE Connect only sees devices on the routers network (192.168.0.*).
I think it would work if I could specify the IP manually somehow, but afaik I can't.