You can write a luks key to a usb stick and use that to automatically decrypt at boot. https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Full_Disk_Encryption#Unattended_Boot_via_USB

How do you store them after they are frozen? Do you move them into a different non plastic container or leave them in the trays?

We have some of these but I haven’t used them yet b/c I am not sure what to put them in after freezing and if it’s a ziplock it doesn’t seem like this beats vacuum sealing. I am looking for some ideas because I would also like to cut down on plastic.

Have you considered macvtap? if you can work around the limitation of not accessing the guest directly from the host it will likely be an easier choice for setting up access to your jellyfinserver.

You did explain what they are trying to do but didn’t explain why, which could help with suggestions on how to achieve what you are looking for in your setup.

ssh -v can be help troubleshoot connection issues. Any firewalls involved on either end?

It behaves like 2 computers. I have mine set up to change my input from 3 monitors to 2 monitors when the VM starts with qemuhooks by running a xrandr script. You can position the 2 monitors virtually wherever you want. qemuhooks executes another script when it shuts down to switch back to 3 monitors. (Arandr is a great gui to set up the monitors the way you like them and then save the setup as a script)

I have 2 mice and 2 keyboards. Gaming one is just the left half of a split keyboard. The gaming mouse and gaming keyboard get passed through automatically on VM startup.

You can use one kb and mouse on both the host and guest but need to manage switching back and forth with keybinds. There are probably other solutions that I am not aware of maybe ones that let you move the mouse in and out of the virtual machine.

I really like this setup though since I can have a web browser, discord, music etc open on the host and can just switch kb/mouse to control them and don’t need to worry about switching the input back and forth or cycling focus (alt tab etc.) the way i would if I was not using a virtual machine.

If I want to use the mic in game and also on discord I pass the mic through to the guest and just run discord in there.

I liked the setup so much that I installed a Linux VM. Eventually everything I was playing worked on Linux and I didn’t need windows anymore so I got rid of it but still use the passthrough.