AvaDesk help

The issues the client links to directly.

Wayland: unattended access does not work

Wayland does not let an ordinary application read the screen or inject input the way X11 does, so screen capture and remote control are unreliable and unattended access generally will not work at all.

The fix is to log in under X11 instead. At the login screen, click the gear or settings icon next to the Sign In button and pick the session named Xorg or X11, then log in.

To make it permanent on GNOME, disable Wayland system-wide:

sudo sed -i 's/^#\?WaylandEnable=.*/WaylandEnable=false/' /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
sudo systemctl restart gdm3

That logs everyone out, so save your work first.

The login screen belongs to the display manager, not to your desktop session, so a client running as your user cannot see it. Connecting before anyone has logged in shows a black screen for the same reason.

You need the service installed and running as root, and an X11 session (see above — this cannot work under Wayland):

sudo systemctl enable --now avadesk
systemctl status avadesk

Linux: permission problems

Input control needs access to /dev/uinput. If the remote screen appears but the mouse and keyboard do nothing, that is usually the cause:

sudo chmod 660 /dev/uinput
sudo usermod -aG input $USER

Log out and back in for the group change to apply. If the client asks for a password when it starts, that is PAM: the service needs root to capture the login screen and to survive a session ending.

macOS: enabling permissions

macOS requires each capability to be granted explicitly. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and add AvaDesk under:

Screen & System Audio Recording — without it the remote screen stays black
Accessibility — without it mouse and keyboard do nothing
Input Monitoring — for keyboard capture
Full Disk Access — only if you need file transfer

Quit and reopen AvaDesk afterwards. macOS does not apply a newly granted permission to an already-running app.

Linux with no monitor attached

With no display plugged in, most Linux machines start no X server at all, so there is nothing to capture and a connection shows a black screen.

The usual fix is a virtual display. On a machine with an NVIDIA or Intel GPU, forcing a resolution in the X config makes the driver create one even with nothing connected. Failing that, install a dummy driver:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-video-dummy

then add a dummy Device, Monitor and Screen section to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restart the display manager. A hardware HDMI dummy plug does the same job with no configuration and is often less trouble.

Restricting who may connect

The IP whitelist limits which addresses may reach this machine at all. Open Settings → Security → IP Whitelist and enter addresses or CIDR ranges, one per line.

An empty list means anyone with your ID and password can connect. Setting it wrong locks you out of that machine remotely, so make sure you have physical or SSH access before you apply it.