WoodVNC V_1_0

Self-hosted, browser-based remote desktop for a private network. No device cap, no cloud account, nothing to configure.

Every computer runs its own WoodVNC, and every computer's dashboard lists all the others. Run the same installer everywhere — there is no central machine to nominate, and if one computer is off the rest carry on.

Install

Download WoodVNC-Setup-1.0.0.exe below and run it on each Windows computer.

It needs nothing pre-installed — Node, Python and everything else are inside the package. It asks one optional question (a dashboard password, or leave it blank), installs per-user with no administrator prompt, and puts an icon on your desktop.

Two things to expect the first time:

• SmartScreen will say "Windows protected your PC" — the installer isn't code-signed. More info → Run anyway.
• Windows Firewall will prompt. Allow it on Private networks, or the other computers can't reach this one. Every machine needs this, not just one.

Then double-click the icon. Within a few seconds every other WoodVNC computer on the network appears in the list.

What's in it

• Zero-config discovery over mDNS, with a UDP broadcast fallback that probes every network a machine is attached to rather than just the default route.
• Dirty-rectangle JPEG capture: the screen is tiled at 128×128, tiles are hashed against the previous frame, and only changed tiles are sent. Measured 490 kbps against 19.3 Mbps for full frames on the same desktop activity.
• Multi-monitor — machines with several screens get a picker; only the screen you're watching costs bandwidth.
• Live performance on every card — CPU, memory, and throughput for every network interface, with WoodVNC's own traffic shown separately so you can tell "this link is busy" from "this link is busy because you're watching it". Current values only; nothing is stored.
• Previews without streaming — cards always show a picture, but nothing streams until you ask it to. An idle fleet costs effectively nothing.
• Four-layer security model: which machines may join, dashboard authentication (optional, password-only, argon2id, per-IP exponential backoff), per-machine connect passwords, and TLS. All four are documented honestly in the README, including what the defaults trade away.

Know before you install

The installer defaults to open enrollment and an optional password, because that is what makes a mesh work with no per-machine setup. In that configuration, any computer running the agent on your network can both view and be viewed. That is appropriate for a network you physically control and not for one with other people's laptops on it. Both settings are one line each in config.toml — see the Security model section of the README.

Verified

270 tests: 103 hub, 167 agent. Protocol fixtures are decoded by both the TypeScript and Python suites, so the two implementations can't drift apart. Running on 17 machines.

Windows x64. The agent also runs on Linux (X11) from source.