Using keyboard on a headless device (no keyboard attached)

[boppreh]

Using keyboard on a headless device (no keyboard attached)

[boppreh]

Right now it does require a keyboard to work on Linux, because we write the events to the device file. If there's no keyboard the OS won't have created any device files for it.

But I agree this is a pointless limitation. The library should create a fake event device in case no hardware is found. Maybe following http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/14882/52837 if it can be done with no binaries or external libs.

[boppreh]

I think I found an alternative, but it requires X to be installed. Are you running any graphical interface, or just a headless TTY?

[nickehallgren]

Wow, you're fast :) I'm actually running X so that is no problem.

[boppreh]

Great. The alternative would require playing with drivers and um put, which is painful and would introduce potential segfaults.

I'll get back to you when I have some X code implemented to simulate keyboard and mouse events.

[boppreh]

Ok, I think it's working now. When no devices are detected on Linux it creates a fake device using the uinput driver (included in most kernels, and does not even require X). It worked well on my raspberry pi, allowing to simulate keyboard events through SSH.

Note this library does not have support for changing devices, unfortunately. So there must be no keyboards connected when the library call is made for it to create the uinput device. If this is troublesome for you please let me know and I'll bump the priority of this feature.

Please let me know if it's working for you.

[boppreh]

The library got more popular and I'm trying to clean up the issues list. I think the problem has been solved, so I'm closing this issue. If you still need anything feel free to comment and/or reopen it, though.

[nickehallgren]

Thanks!!!

[ollipal]

@nickehallgren
One solution is to try sshkeyboard

It works in headless devices / servers which do not have keyboard attached, and it does not require X to be installed.
It allows you to react to user input even through SSH, but it cannot mock user input like keyboard does it.