Ubuntu Manpage: waypipe - A transparent proxy for Wayland applications

NAME

       waypipe - A transparent proxy for Wayland applications

SYNOPSIS

       waypipe [options...] ssh [ssh options] destination command...

       waypipe [options...] client
       waypipe [options...] server -- command...
       waypipe recon control_pipe new_socket_path
       waypipe bench bandwidth
       waypipe [--version] [-h, --help]

       [options...] = [-c, --compress C] [-d, --debug] [-n, --no-gpu] [-o, --oneshot] [-s, --socket S] [--allow-
       tiled]  [--control  C]  [--display  D]  [--drm-node R] [--remote-node R] [--remote-bin R] [--login-shell]
       [--threads T] [--unlink-socket] [--video[=V]]

DESCRIPTION

Waypipe is a proxy for Wayland clients, with the aim of supporting behavior like ssh -X.

Prefixing an ssh ... command to become waypipe ssh ... will automatically run waypipe both locally and
remotely, and modify the ssh command to set up forwarding between the two instances of waypipe. The
remote instance will act like a Wayland compositor, letting Wayland applications that are run remotely be
displayed locally.

When run as waypipe client, it will open a socket (by default at /tmp/waypipe-client.sock) and will
connect to the local Wayland compositor and forward all Wayland applications which were linked to it over
the socket by a matching waypipe server instance.

When run as waypipe server, it will run the command that follows in its command line invocation, set up
its own Wayland compositor socket, and try to connect to its matching waypipe client socket (by default
/tmp/waypipe-server.sock) and try to forward all the Wayland clients that connect to fake compositor
socket to the matching waypipe client.

The waypipe recon mode is used to reconnect a waypipe server instance which has had a control pipe
(option --control) set. The new socket path should indicate a Unix socket whose connections are forwarded
to the waypipe client that the waypipe server was initially connected to.

The waypipe bench mode can be used to estimate, given a specific connection bandwidth in MB/sec, which
compression options produce the lowest latency. It tests two synthetic images, one made to be roughly as
compressible as images containing text, and one made to be roughly as compressible as images containing
pictures.

OPTIONS

-c C, --compress C
Select the compression method applied to data transfers. Options are none (for high-bandwidth
networks), lz4 (intermediate), zstd (slow connection). The default compression is none.† The
compression level can be chosen by appending = followed by a number. For example, if C is zstd=7,
waypipe will use level 7 Zstd compression.

† In a future version, the default will change to lz4.

-d, --debug
Print debug log messages.

-h, --help
Show help message and quit.

-n, --no-gpu
Block protocols like wayland-drm and linux-dmabuf which require access to e.g. render nodes.

-o, --oneshot
Only permit a single connection, and exit when it is closed.

-s S, --socket S
Use S as the path for the Unix socket. The default socket path for server mode is /tmp/waypipe-
server.sock; for client mode, it is /tmp/waypipe-client.sock; and in ssh mode, S gives the prefix
used by both the client and the server for their socket paths.

--version
Briefly describe Waypipe's version and the features it was built with, then quit. Possible features:
LZ4 compression support, ZSTD compression support, ability to transfer DMABUFs, video compression
support, VAAPI hardware video de/encoding support.

--allow-tiled
By default, waypipe filters out all advertised DMABUF formats which have format layout modifiers, as
CPU access to these formats may be very slow. Setting this flag disables the filtering. Since tiled
images often permit faster GPU operations, most OpenGL applications will select tiling modifiers when
they are available.

--control C
For server or ssh mode, provide the path to the "control pipe" that will be created the the server.
Writing (with waypipe recon C T, or instance replace all running connections with connections to the
new Unix socket. The new socket should ultimately forward data to the same waypipe client that the
server was connected to before.

--display D
For server or ssh mode, provide WAYLAND_DISPLAY and let waypipe configure its Wayland display socket
to have a matching path. (If D is not an absolute path, the socket will be created in the folder
given by the environment variable XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.)

--drm-node R
Specify the path R to the drm device that this instance of waypipe should use and (in server mode)
notify connecting applications about.

--remote-node R
In ssh mode, specify the path R to the drm device that the remote instance of waypipe (running in
server mode) should use.

--remote-bin R
In ssh mode, specify the path R to the waypipe binary on the remote computer, or its name if it is
available in PATH. It defaults to waypipe if this option isn’t passed.

--login-shell
Only for server mode; if no command is being run, open a login shell.

--threads T
Set the number of total threads (including the main thread) which a waypipe instance will create.
These threads will be used to parallelize compression operations. This flag is passed on to waypipe
server when given to waypipe ssh. The flag also controls the thread count for waypipe bench. The
default behavior (choosable by setting T to 0) is to use half as many threads as the computer has
hardware threads available.

--unlink-socket
Only for server mode; on shutdown, unlink the Unix socket that waypipe connects to.

--video[=V]
Compress specific DMABUF formats using a lossy video codec. Opaque, 10-bit, and multiplanar formats,
among others, are not supported. V is a comma separated list of options to control the video
encoding. Using the --video flag without setting any options is equivalent to using the default
setting of: --video=sw,bpf=120000,h264. Later options supersede earlier ones.

sw
Use software encoding and decoding.

hw
Use hardware (VAAPI) encoding and decoding, if available. This can be finicky and may only work
with specific window buffer formats and sizes.

h264
Use H.264 encoded video.

vp9
Use VP9 encoded video.

bpf=B
Set the target bit rate of the video encoder, in units of bits per frame. B can be written as an
integer or with exponential notation; thus --video=bpf=7.5e5 is equivalent to --video=bpf=750000.

--hwvideo
Deprecated option, equivalent to --video=hw .

EXAMPLE

       The following waypipe ssh subcommand will attempt to run weston-flower on the server  exserv,  displaying
       the result on the local system.

                waypipe ssh user@exserv weston-flower

       One can obtain similar behavior by explicitly running waypipe and ssh:

                waypipe --socket /tmp/socket-client client  &
                ssh -R /tmp/socket-server:/tmp/socket-client user@exserv \
                     waypipe --socket /tmp/socket-server server -- weston-flower
                kill %1

       Waypipe may be run locally without an SSH connection by specifying matching socket paths. For example:

                waypipe --socket /tmp/waypipe.sock client &
                waypipe --socket /tmp/waypipe.sock server weston-simple-dmabuf-egl
                kill %1
                rm /tmp/waypipe.sock

       Using  transports  other than SSH is a bit more complicated. A recipe with ncat to connect to remote from
       computer local:

               $ waypipe --socket /tmp/waypipe-remote.sock client &
               $ ncat --ssl -lk 12345 --sh-exec 'ncat -U /tmp/waypipe-remote.sock' &
               $ ssh user@remote

               > ncat -lkU /tmp/waypipe-local.sock --sh-exec 'ncat --ssl local 12345' &
               > waypipe --display wayland-local \
                           --socket /tmp/waypipe-local.sock server -- sleep inf &
               > WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-local application

       Given a certificate file, socat can also provide an encrypted  connection  (remove  'verify=0'  to  check
       certificates):

               $ waypipe --socket /tmp/waypipe-remote.sock client &
               $ socat openssl-listen:12345,reuseaddr,cert=certificate.pem,verify=0,fork \
                   unix-connect:/tmp/waypipe-remote.sock
               $ ssh user@remote

               > socat unix-listen:/tmp/waypipe-local.sock,reuseaddr,fork \
                   openssl-connect:local:12345,verify=0 &
               > waypipe --socket /tmp/waypipe-local.sock server -- application

       Many  applications  require  specific  environment  variables to use Wayland instead of X11. If ssh isn't
       configured to support loading ~/.ssh/environment, one can use env to set the needed variables each  time;
       or run waypipe without a command, to use the login shell environment.

                 waypipe ssh user@host env XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland dolphin

       Waypipe  has  support  for  reconnecting a waypipe client and a waypipe server instance when whatever was
       used to transfer data between their sockets fails. For this to work, waypipe must  still  be  running  on
       both sides of the connection. As the waypipe ssh wrapper will automatically close both the waypipe client
       and  the waypipe server when the connection fails, the client and server modes must be run seprately. For
       example, to persistently forward applications running on server  rserv  to  a  local  Wayland  compositor
       running on lserv, one would first set up a waypipe client instance on lserv,

                waypipe -s /tmp/waypipe.sock client &

       and on server rserv, establish socket forwarding and run the server

                ssh -fN -L /tmp/waypipe-lserv.sock:/tmp/waypipe.sock user@lserv
                waypipe -s /tmp/waypipe-lserv.sock --control /tmp/ctrl-lserv.pipe \
                     --display wayland-lserv server -- sleep inf &

       then  set WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-lserv and run the desired applications. When the ssh forwarding breaks,
       on rserv, reconnect with

                ssh -fN -L /tmp/waypipe-lserv-2.sock:/tmp/waypipe.sock user@lserv
                waypipe recon /tmp/ctrl-lserv.pipe /tmp/waypipe-lserv-2.sock

ENVIRONMENT

       When running as a server, by default WAYLAND_DISPLAY will be set for the invoked process.

       If the --oneshot flag is set, waypipe will instead set WAYLAND_SOCKET and inherit  an  already  connected
       socketpair  file  descriptor  to  the  invoked  (child)  process.  Some programs open and close a Wayland
       connection repeatedly as part of their initialization, and will not work correctly with this flag.

EXIT STATUS

       waypipe ssh will exit with the exit status code from the remote command, or with return code 1  if  there
       has been an error.

BUGS

       File bug reports at: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mstoeckl/waypipe/

       Some  programs  (gnome-terminal, firefox, kate, among others) have special mechanisms to ensure that only
       one process is running at a time. Starting those programs under Waypipe while they are  running  under  a
       different  Wayland  compositor may silently open a window or tab in the original instance of the program.
       Such programs may have a command line argument to create a new instance.