Inputpipe Last changed: 2005-07-24 [8:20] Content: Inputpipe is a tool to send input device events (keyboard, mouse, etc.) over the network.   Back to Personal Wiki

Table of contents Usage Problems TODO Links

Usage

The inputpipe tool allows you to redirect input events from one linux system to the next.

You will need to have uinput support in your kernel, which you can activate under

Device Drivers -> Input Device Support -> Misc -> User Level Driver Support

See also the respective Kernel-Device-Input-Misc section.

If you enabled it as a module load it with

modprobe uinput

The inputpipe package provides two applications. The inputpipe-server needs to be started on the system receiving the input events. You will need to tell it where it can find the uinput device node:

inputpipe-server -d /dev/uinput

If this throws no error you can now start the client on the machine sending the input events. You will need to select the target machine as well as the path to the input device node:

inputpipe-client HOST /dev/input/event1

In my case this will copy the mouse events which are mapped to /dev/input/event1 to HOST. Moving the mouse on the client will now move the cursor on both machines.

Problems

The major problem is currently that cannot easily deactivate the input events on the sending machine. If you forward your keyboard for example and use su to become root, this will happen on both machines that you connected with the inputpipe. In most cases this is not what you wish for.

I currently do not know how to circumvent that. Maybe there is a way to temporarily stop X from listening to keyboard input.

The other problem is the stability. I sometimes had trouble with one character getting forwarded a hundred times. Disconnecting sometimes left X in a strange state and pressing keys did result in keycodes that were way off.

TODO

Add links.

Add ebuild.

Links

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