VM Bridge

This is my personal Mac + Parallels Ubuntu setup. Fork it and have your AI tool adapt it to your environment.

Bidirectional communication between VMs and host machines, bypassing mosh/tmux clipboard limitations.

Why You Need This

• Mosh has a ~12KB clipboard limit that truncates large content
• OSC 52 doesn't work reliably over mosh/tmux
• No way to trigger host operations from within VM
• Need bidirectional communication between VM and host

What It Does

• Unlimited clipboard between VM and host (50MB+)
• Run commands on host from VM
• Run commands on VM from host
• File transfers between systems
• Notifications from VM to host
• URL opening on host from VM
• Extensible - add any command you need

My Setup

• macOS host (10.211.55.2) with mac_daemon_network.py on port 9999
• Ubuntu VM (10.211.55.4) with vm_daemon.py on port 9998
• Python-based daemons for bidirectional communication

Available Commands

Command	Description	Direction
pbcopy	Copy to Mac clipboard	VM→Mac
pbpaste	Paste from Mac clipboard	VM→Mac
notify	Show Mac notification	VM→Mac
open_url	Open URL in Mac browser	VM→Mac
run_command	Execute shell commands	Both ways
read_file	Read files	Both ways
claude	Run Claude CLI (if installed)	VM→Mac

Adding Your Own Commands

Edit the COMMANDS dict in the daemon:

COMMANDS = {
    'your_command': {
        'binary': '/path/to/program',
        'allow_stdin': True,
        'allow_args': True,
        'description': 'What it does'
    }
}

Make It Yours

# 1. Fork this repo on GitHub, then clone YOUR fork
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/vm-bridge

# 2. Have your AI adapt it
claude "Adapt this VM bridge for [your environment]"
# or
cursor "Make this work with my VMware/WSL2/Docker setup"

Your AI can:

• Update IPs for your network
• Change commands for your OS (pbcopy → clip.exe, etc.)
• Rewrite in your preferred language
• Add features you need

Quick Start (my setup)

Mac:

python3 mac_daemon_network.py  # Listens on 0.0.0.0:9999

Ubuntu VM:

python3 vm_daemon.py  # Listens on 0.0.0.0:9998
python3 vm_client.py  # Test it

Files

• mac_daemon_network.py - Host daemon (receives from VM)
• vm_daemon.py - VM daemon (receives from host)
• vm_client.py - VM→Host client
• mac_to_vm_test.py - Host→VM test script
• bridge_demo.py - Full demo

Security

• IP whitelist (only local network)
• Command whitelist (no arbitrary execution)
• Size limits per command
• Direct binary execution (no shell injection)

License

MIT - Fork it, change it, make it work for you.