rfbproxy.1

.\"		-*-Nroff-*-
.\" Copyright 2000 Red Hat, Inc.
.TH RFBPROXY 1 "19 Aug 2005" "VNC EXTRAS" "User's Manual"
.SH NAME
rfbproxy \- record, play back, or export a VNC session
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rfbproxy
\fIACTION\fR [\fIOPTION\fR]... [:n] \fIfiles\fR
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B rfbproxy
is a simple proxy for VNC, which allows recording of screen
updates, key presses and mouse events, for later replay to
a VNC client or export as a series of PPM frames.
It can also record screen updates by connecting to a VNC
session shared by other client(s).
Exporting as a series of PPMs is the first step
towards converting a session to video using tools such as
.BR mjpegtools (1),
.BR ffmpeg (1),
and/or
.BR ffmpeg2theora .
.SH OPTIONS
\fIACTION\fR is exactly one of:
.TP
\fB\-r\fR, \fB\--record\fR
record RFB communications and store them in the file (only one file is
allowed for \fIfiles\fR)
.TP
\fB\-p\fR, \fB\--playback\fR
play back the RFB communications that were captured to the \fIfiles\fR
.TP
\fB\-x\fR, \fB\--export\fR
export as a series of PPM frames written to standard output
the RFB communications
that were captured to the \fIfiles\fR
.PP
\fIOPTIONS\fR can be:
.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\--stdout\fR
use stdin and stdout for communications with the client.  Useful in
conjunction with inetd
.TP
\fB\-l\fR, \fB\--loop\fR
(playback only) when file is finished, replay from first
FrameBufferUpdate
.TP
\fB\-d\fR, \fB\--date\fR
(record only) append date to end of filename
.TP
\fB\-s\fR, \fB\--shared\fR
(record only) attach to a shared session
.TP
\fB\-v\fR
increase verbosity
.TP
\fB\--pause=\fR\fIkey\fR
(playback only) when
.I key
is pressed,
playback will be paused until it is pressed again.
.I key
can be either a single lowercase ASCII character
or an X Windows keysym in hex (no preceding '0x').
Note that keys between 'a' and 'f' will be interpreted
as hexadecimal numbers, and must be specified as '61'
through '66'.  Backspace is 'ff08'; Return is 'ff0d';
Escape is 'ff1b'; Delete is 'ffff'. (no default)
.TP
\fB\--cycle=\fR\fIkey\fR
(playback only) when multiple files are specified pressing 
.I key
will cycle between them.  Specified in same way as
.BR --pause .
(no default)
.TP
\fB\--type\fR=\fIWHAT\fR
(proxy record only) capture either screen updates (`screen') or
keyboard/mouse events (`events').  If 'events' are requested,
an RFM (remote framebuffer macro) file is recorded that can
be played back with
.BR rfbplaymacro .
(default
.BR screen )
.TP
\fB\--framerate\fR=[\fBntsc\fR|\fBpal\fR|\fBfile\fR|\fIm/n\fR]
(export only) specify framerate by name or numeric ratio
.RI ( m/n
frames per second) (default
.BR ntsc )
.TP
\fB\--server\fR=[\fIserver\fR]:\fIdisplay\fR
(record only) use specified VNC server (default
.BR localhost:0 )
.TP
\fB\--password\fR=\fIyourPassword\fR
(record only) Specify a password to use when connecting to a shared VNC server.
.TP
\fB\--recording-lock-file\fR=\fIfilename\fR
(record only) A file to populate with the PID of the process whilst recording (disappears on a successful kill).
.TP
\fB:n
Occupy VNC display localhost:\fIn\fR (not valid with \fI\-c\fR
option; default
.BR :10 ).
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
.I rfbproxy -r log.fbs
Wait for a VNC client to connect to
.BR localhost:10 ,
then connect to
.B localhost:0
and relay all VNC traffic between them,
recording the screen updates in FBS 1.0 format to
.I log.fbs
and exiting when the client disconnects.  See
.B BUGS AND CAVEATS
below for limitations of FBS 1.0.

.TP
.I rfbproxy -rs log.fbs
Connect to
.B localhost:0
as a shared session and record the screen updates in FBS 1.1 format to
.I log.fbs
until killed (CNTL-C or
.BR kill ).

.TP
.I rfbproxy -p log.fbs
Wait for a VNC client to connect to
.BR localhost:10 ,
then playback the VNC session recorded in
.IR log.fbs .

.TP
.I rfbproxy -pl --cycle=ff0d log.fbs
Looping playback that resets if the Return key hit.  Useful for playing
back sessions whose colors don't show right because of client-initiated
changes in pixel format; hitting Return right away to reset the
playback often helps.  See
.B BUGS AND CAVEATS
below for a better solution.

.TP
.I rfbproxy -x log.fbs | ppmtoy4m -S 420_jpeg | mpeg2enc -o video.mpg
Convert the VNC session in
.I log.fbs
to MPEG-2 using
.BR mjpegtools (1).

.TP
.I rfbproxy -x log.fbs | ppmtoy4m -S 420_jpeg | ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -vcodec mpeg4 video.avi
Convert the VNC session in
.I log.fbs
to MPEG-4 using
.BR ffmpeg (1)
.RB ( ppmtoy4m (1)
is from
.BR mjpegtools (1)).

.PP
Here's simple shell script that simultaneously records VNC and audio
at DVD's 48 kHz sample rate
.RB ( vrec
is from
.BR sndtools ):

.RS 4
#!/bin/sh
.P
function terminate() {
.br
	kill $background_pid
.br
}
.br
trap terminate SIGTERM SIGINT SIGKILL
.P
rfbproxy -rs fbs &
.br
background_pid=$!
.P
vrec -s 48000 -b 16 -r audio
.RE

This one converts the recorded fbs/audio pair into a DVD-standard MPEG-2
with MP2 audio using
.BR mjpegtools (1)
and
.BR toolame (1).

.RS 4
#!/bin/sh
.P
rfbproxy -x fbs | ppmtoy4m -S 420_jpeg | \\
.br
    yuvscaler -n ntsc -O DVD | mpeg2enc -f 8 -o video.mpv
.br
toolame -m mono -s 48 audio audio.mp2
.br
mplex -f 8 -o video.mpg audio.mp2 video.mpv
.RE

And this one converts the recorded fbs/audio pair into an DivX6-compatible
MPEG-4 with MP3 audio using
.BR ffmpeg (1)
and
.BR lame (1).

.RS 4
#!/bin/sh
.P
lame -m m -x -r -s 48 -h audio audio.mp3
.br
rfbproxy -x fbs | ppmtoy4m -S 420_jpeg | \\
.br
    ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -i audio.mp3 \\
.br
        -vcodec mpeg4 -vtag DivX -b 800 -g 300 -bf 2 -acodec copy video.avi
.RE

Both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files can be converted to Ogg/Vorbis with ffmpeg2theora:

.RS 4
ffmpeg2theora -o video.ogg video.avi
.RE


.SH SECURITY
To avoid recording passwords (even encrypted),
.B rfbproxy
discards authentication information when recording a session,
and instead changes the recorded authenticated scheme to look
like the session used no authentication.
.PP
.B rfbproxy
does not authenticate incomming connections in playback mode.
.PP
Recording keystrokes with
.B --type=events
can record passwords.

.SH BUGS AND CAVEATS
A proxy record will create a version 1.0 FBS file whose pixel formats
can't be reliably interpreted, and will probably only work for playback
to the same (or a very similar) client that recorded it, and not for export.
Shard-session records create version 1.1 FBS files that don't have
this problem.

.PP
Playback makes no attempt to handle client FramebufferUpdateRequests;
it justs transmits a series of FramebufferUpdates exactly as they
were recorded.  This defect is most noticeable with clients that
pan across a session larger than their window size; the exposed
areas will probably remain undrawn by
.BR rfbproxy .
Clients that switch pixel formats (i.e,
.BR xvncviewer )
can also be affected by this; parts of the screen can
remain drawn in a low-resolution format after the client
has switched to a high-resolution format.
Fix this by stopping the client from changing pixel formats.  For
.B xvncviewer
try
.B -autoselect=0 -fullcolor
(version 4.1.1) or
.B -noauto -depth 24
(version 3.3.7).

.PP
If you intend to use the --loop or --cycle options when playing back
an FBS 1.0 file, you
.I cannot
use the ZRLE encoding when recording.  This is because the
zlib state cannot be maintained.  FBS 1.1 files do not use ZRLE at all.
.PP
Suspending
.B rfbproxy
(or any script using it) when recording
in shared session mode can freeze all sessions attached to
the VNC server.
.PP
Neither export nor FBS 1.1 playback work on colormap sessions
(only true color is supported).
.PP
Pixel formats larger than 32 bits are not supported.
.SH AUTHORS
Tim Waugh <twaugh@redhat.com>
.br
Brent Baccala <baccala@freesoft.org>
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR vncviewer (1),
.BR vncserver (1),
.BR Xvnc (1),
.BR ppm (5),
.BR mjpegtools (1),
.BR ffmpeg (1).