droidVNC-NG

This is an Android VNC server using contemporary Android 5+ APIs. It therefore does not require root access. In reverence to the venerable droid-VNC-server is is called droidVNC-NG.

Features

• Network export of device frame buffer with optional server-side scaling.
• Injection of remote pointer events.
• Handling of client-to-server text copy & paste. Note that server-to-client copy & paste does not work in a generic way due to Android security restrictions.
• Handling of special keys to trigger 'Recent Apps' overview, Home button and Back button.
• Android permission handling.
• Screen rotation handling.
• File transfer via the local network, assuming TightVNC viewer for Windows version 1.3.x is used.
• Password protection for secure-in-terms-of-VNC connection.
• Ability to specify the port used.
• Start of background service on device boot.
• Reverse VNC.
• Ability to connect to a UltraVNC-style Mode-2 repeater.

Contributing

Contributions to the project are very welcome and encouraged! They can come in many forms. You can:

• Submit a feature request or bug report as an issue.
• Provide info for issues that require feedback.
• Add features or fix bugs via pull requests. Please note there's a list of issues where contributions are especially welcome. Also, please adhere to the contribution guidelines.

How to use

1. Install the app from either marketplace.
2. Get it all the permissions required.
3. Set a good password and consider turning the Start on Boot off.
4. Connect to your local Wi-Fi. For accepting a connection your device should be connected to some Local Area Network that you can control, normally it is a router. Connections via data networks (i.e. your mobile provider) are not supported.
5. Click Start and connect to your device.

For accepting connections from outside

1. You should allow Port Forwarding in your router's Firewall settings. Login to your router's settings (usually open 192.168.1.1 in your browser, some routers have password written on them).

2. Find Port Forwarding, usually it's somewhere in Network - Firewall - Port Forwards.

3. Create a new rule, this is an example from OpenWRT firmware.

   Name: VNC forwarding

   Protocol: TCP

   Source zone: wan may be "internet", "modem", something that suggests the external source.

   External port: 5900 by default or whatever you specified in the app.

   Destination zone: lan something that suggests local network.

   Internal IP address: your device's local IP address, leaving any is less secure. The device's address may change over time! You can look it up in your routers' connected clients info.

   Internal port: same as external port.

4. Apply the settings, sometimes it requires rebooting a router.

5. Figure out your public adress i.e. https://www.hashemian.com/whoami/.

6. Use this address and port from above to connect to your device.

Notes

• Requires at least Android 7.

• Since Android 10, the permission to access the screen contents has to be given on each start and is not saved. You can, however, work around this by installing adb (or simply Android Studio) on a PC, connecting the device running droidVNC-NG to that PC and running adb shell cmd appops set net.christianbeier.droidvnc_ng PROJECT_MEDIA allow once.

• You can also use adb to manually give input permission prior to app start via adb shell settings put secure enabled_accessibility_services net.christianbeier.droidvnc_ng/.InputService:$(adb shell settings get secure enabled_accessibility_services).

• If you are getting a black screen in a connected VNC viewer despite having given all permissions, it might be that your device does not support Android's MediaProjection API correctly. To find out, you can try screen recording with another app, ScreenRecorder. If it fails as well, your device most likely does not support screen recording via MediaProjection. This is known to be the case for Android-x86.