Unable to enter the password using a Swiss German keyboard in Smarts

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:



 

Unable to launch the sm_gui console through an X Server

 

Unable to enter the password using a Swiss German keyboard

 

Some of the characters being typed on the keyboard are not entered to the password field

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

The issues with character input arise when any text is being entered from a non-US keyboard to a system using a non-US locale. In this case, a Swiss German keyboard, so the locale will also be non-US. This means that every key you type is considered part of the international charset as all keys are potentially mapped differently on non-US keyboards.

Pressing a key on the PC keyboard generates a scan code based roughly on the position of the key. For example, the Z key on a German keyboard generates the same code as the Y key on an English keyboard, because they are the same key.

An X server uses a two-level encoding of keys. An X key code is a one-byte value. The assignment of key codes to keys depends on the X server implementation and the physical keyboard. This will explain why the particular Xserver that you are using would map a key differently and thus, not allow its display.

Resolution

This will be resolved in a future version. An enhancement request is already open.