Linux remote desktop that keeps working when the screen locks

It isn't one bug, it's how Linux desktops protect a locked screen, and they're right to. Three things tend to get in the way:

• Wayland hides a locked screen from every app. Ubuntu's default GNOME desktop, for example, lets nothing see or control the screen while it's locked, including screen-sharing apps you approved. The remote picture goes dark, and your typing goes nowhere.
• The screen blanks and the PC sleeps. A remote session doesn't count as someone at the keyboard, so power settings blank the screen, lock it and suspend the PC on their normal timers.
• Signing out ends everything. Apps that run in your desktop session stop when it does, and on most desktops that includes the remote access app.

The result is the situation many Linux users know: the PC is right there, switched on, and you can't get back in until someone walks over to it.

• It keeps the PC awake while you're connected. During a session the Agent wakes the screen and holds off blanking, locking and suspend. When you leave, the PC goes back to its normal settings.
• On Wayland, it shows you its own lock screen. If the PC is locked anyway, because it locked before you connected or someone locked it, the session shows This computer is locked. Type the Linux user's password and press Enter: the system checks it, as it would at the PC, and the session unlocks with everything still open.
• On X11, the desktop's own lock screen works. You see it in the session and type the password into it, as you would at the PC.
• Unattended access survives the lock. On Wayland the desktop asks once, at the PC, before its screen can be shared. Approve it once and it's remembered, so you can connect, unlock and work with nobody there.

Unlocking only works in a session the PC has allowed, with remote control on, and RemoteAccessApp doesn't keep the password. The unlock guide walks through it step by step.

• One package, both sides. RemoteAccessApp for Linux includes the Agent (so this PC can be reached) and the Console (to reach your other PCs), as a .deb or a .tar.gz.
• X11 and Wayland. The same package works on both and picks the right way by itself.
• Nothing to host or open. Linux PCs connect out to RemoteAccessApp's servers, and every session goes through them, encrypted. There's no server of your own to run and no port to forward.
• Signed updates. Updates are checked against RemoteAccessApp's signed release before they install.
• Consent at the PC. Allow remote access? unless unattended access lets your console in, and a banner with an End button in every session.

We'd rather you know this before you rely on it: unlocking is for a locked screen, with the person still signed in. After a sign-out, the Agent starts again only when someone signs in to the desktop. If you need a PC to come back by itself after a restart or a power cut, turn on Available after a restart in the Agent's settings at the PC: it signs you in by itself and locks the screen straight away, so you unlock it from your side. Keep that for a PC somewhere you trust, since the desktop can show for a moment before the lock comes up.

It takes a few minutes. Install RemoteAccessApp on the Linux PC from the download page, add it with a 6-digit code, and on Wayland approve screen sharing once while you're still at it. Then turn on unattended access if you'll connect when nobody's there. Coming from another app? Switch to RemoteAccessApp walks you through moving over.

The free plan covers up to 5 PCs, Linux and Windows together. If something about locked screens doesn't work on your distribution, tell us at [email protected].