zDesk
EnglishEN

wlshare

A VNC server for wlroots desktops, built for zDesk.

It shares a sway, labwc or other wlroots desktop over RFB, and gives zDesk what plain VNC cannot carry: the browser's pixel density, a picture fitted to the link, the desktop's sound, the browser's camera and microphone, and a second output in a tab of its own. It is free and open source under the MIT licence.

It needs wlroots 0.19 or later, whose cursor capture it does not start without. On Debian trixie that and the sway or labwc built on it come from its own APT repository, whose wlroots carries one patch, for labwc reloading its configuration while two outputs are shared, as in a second browser tab; where that is not needed, a stock wlroots 0.19 or later is enough.

Like zDesk, wlshare is on a rolling release: the latest release is the current one.

Read the Guide

Sway through wlshare at a Mac's Retina density, in Chrome, with a video playing.

Sharp at the browser's density

It tells the client the density its pixels are drawn at, which standard RFB cannot, and takes the browser's as the output's scale: a Retina or HiDPI screen shows the desktop sharp and at its true size, and a headless output follows the window's size.

A picture for the link

H.264 of the whole desktop from the host's hardware encoder or libx264, fitted to the link; RemoteFX Progressive tiles; lossless tiles with a video stream for each region that moves; or lossless tiles throughout, for a LAN.

The desktop's sound

While a client listens, a PipeWire sink of wlshare's own is the default, and what plays there is sent as lossless FLAC or as Opus. A headless desktop needs no sound card.

The browser's camera and microphone

Lent to the desktop as PipeWire devices, and opened in the browser only while an application on the desktop uses them: a call or a recording there, with the camera in front of you.

One output or two

The client is sent the desktop's outputs to choose from, and a second connection is shown another beside the first. On sway, a client that asks for two virtual displays is given a second headless output.

A login that names its account

RSA-AES with the account's own password through PAM, or a password of its own kept as an Argon2 hash. Classic VncAuth, which cuts the password to eight characters and leaves the session in the clear, is not offered.

Any wlroots compositor

sway, labwc or another compositor offering wlroots' protocols, headless or on a monitor. The pointer stays out of the picture and the client draws it; wlshare's APT repository has the wlroots 0.19 that keeps it out on a headless output, for Debian trixie.

One client at a time

A connection that logs in takes the desktop from whoever holds it, as Windows Remote Desktop does, so a client that died leaves nothing behind: connecting again takes the desktop back.

Demo

A zDesk session recorded from Chrome on a Mac, with no client installed: wlshare on a sway desktop.

Mac → Linux (wlshare on Sway) at Retina/HiDPI density with audio

With sound

Sway through wlshare, shown at the Mac's Retina/HiDPI density, with the remote's sound, and the remote desktop resizing to follow the browser into and out of immersive full screen.

Where it runs

The desktops behind the demo and the pictures here, and how each is set up:

A headless desktop, up at boot

sway or labwc as a systemd user service on wlroots' headless backend, started at boot under lingering with nobody logged in. The session starts wlshare, which sizes the headless output for each client. How

A desktop at the console, handed over

On a machine with monitors, a client taking the desktop is shown a headless output at its own size and density while the monitors go dark, and wlshare watch puts the windows back on them when it leaves. How

LXQt on labwc

A stacking desktop with a panel, a menu and a file manager, on labwc rather than a tiler: the same wlshare, since every wlroots compositor is the same kind of peer.

The keyring, unlocked by the login

With the system login, the password PAM has just checked unlocks the login keyring of a desktop no display manager started. How

Several desktops behind one gateway

One zDesk gateway, in a container or a Kubernetes pod, with a target for each desktop beside Windows and Mac targets, each reached from any browser.

LXQt on labwc, headless under the user manager, at scale 2 in Chrome: a file manager and a terminal.

Through zDesk

A vnc target with subtype = "wlshare" asks for all of it. Without the subtype the same server is read as any VNC server is: its pixels at 1x, with no sound.

With the subtype: the scale 2 output at 2x, whole in the window.
Without it: the same pixels at 1x, twice the size, a quarter of the desktop in the window.
Two outputs of a headless sway in two Chromium windows: a video moved to the second output and back.

Install

On Debian trixie, amd64 or arm64: wlroots 0.19 and sway or labwc from wlshare's APT repository, then wlshare from its releases, the version in place of 0.0.x:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/apt/keyrings/wlshare.gpg https://andrewtheguy.github.io/wlshare/wlshare.gpg
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wlshare.sources <<'EOF'
Types: deb
URIs: https://andrewtheguy.github.io/wlshare
Suites: trixie
Components: main
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/wlshare.gpg
EOF
sudo apt update && sudo apt install sway
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/andrewtheguy/wlshare/releases/download/v0.0.x/wlshare-trixie-amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./wlshare-trixie-amd64.deb
systemctl --user enable --now wlshare.service

It listens on loopback with no login until told otherwise. The wlshare guide covers the login, a headless desktop up at boot, outputs, sound and the rest.