Send a Keyboard Event to a Virtual Machine

prlctl send-key-event <VM ID> -k,--key <key> | -s,--scancode <scancode> [-e,--event <press|release>] [-d,--delay <msec>]

Sends a single keyboard event (key press or release) identified with a specific key code or scancode to a specified virtual machine with a specified delay (in milliseconds). For the complete list of key codes, see this subchapter. See examples below.

prlctl send-key-event <VM ID> -j,--json

Sends a sequence of keyboard events by reading JSON input from stdin. An example of the format is:

[
	{ "key": 13 },
	
	{ "key": 7, "event": "press" },

	{ "scancode": 7, "event": "release", "delay": 100 },

	{ "delay": 100 },

	{ "k": 50, "event": "press", "delay": 100 },
	{ "s": 10, "event": "release", "d": 100 },
]

Examples

If you would like to type "test" and press Enter, the sequence of commands would be:

% prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -k 28
% prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -k 26
% prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -k 39
% prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -k 28
% prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -k 36

If you would like to enter a combination like Win+PrtScr, the command would be:

prlctl send-key-event "<VM_name>" -j

[
    { "key": 115, "event": "press", "delay": 100 },
    { "key": 92,  "delay": 100 },
    { "key": 115, "event": "release" }
]