waypipe is a command-line utility that lets you run Wayland applications on a remote Linux computer while displaying and controlling their windows on your local desktop. It provides functionality comparable to X11 forwarding over SSH, but works with the Wayland display protocol.
Instead of transmitting an entire remote desktop, waypipe forwards the communication between individual applications and the local Wayland compositor. The application continues to execute on the remote machine, while its graphical interface appears alongside locally running programs.
The utility runs on both computers and can establish the necessary connection through SSH. It is particularly useful for accessing graphical applications on remote workstations, development machines and servers without establishing a complete remote desktop session.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Launch remote applications using commands such as
waypipe ssh user@host application, with automatic configuration of the SSH tunnel. - Forward Wayland protocol messages and synchronise changes to shared memory buffers through a single socket.
- Transfer GPU-backed DMA-BUF image buffers, with Vulkan-based handling and optional GBM fallback.
- Support optional video encoding and decoding through FFmpeg to reduce the amount of graphical data transmitted.
- Offer LZ4 and Zstandard compression, with configurable compression levels to suit different network conditions.
- Provide a
--no-gpuoption to disable GPU-related protocols when applications encounter rendering compatibility problems. - Allow the selection of local and remote DRM render nodes for GPU-related operations.
- Support configurable socket paths, SSH executables and remote waypipe executable locations.
- Offer a one-shot mode that exits when the connection closes.
Website: gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe
Support:
Developer: Manuel Stoeckl
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
waypipe is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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