vexRTC

Zero-auth remote screen sharing via WebRTC + Firebase. One command to install — works across the internet.

How it works

• Target machine shares its screen silently as a hidden background daemon
• Monitor machine connects by device number and gets full mouse/keyboard control
• Signaling via Firebase Realtime Database — no server to run or maintain
• Peer-to-peer video via WebRTC — Firebase only brokers the connection, video never touches it

Quick start

Target machine (screen to be shared)

npx vexrtc -serve

This installs once to ~/.vexrtc/, registers an OS autostart service, and starts the daemon in the background. The screen is shared silently — no window, no taskbar icon, no dock entry.

Auto-starts on every reboot. Only stops when you explicitly run -stop.

Monitor machine (viewing)

npx vexrtc -monitor 1

Opens a browser tab connected to device #1. Use -monitor 2 for device #2, and so on.

No installation required on the monitor machine.

Stop sharing

npx vexrtc -stop

Stops the daemon and removes it from autostart.

Check status

npx vexrtc -status

Commands

| Command | Description | |---|---| | npx vexrtc -serve | Install and start screen sharing daemon | | npx vexrtc -stop | Stop daemon and remove autostart | | npx vexrtc -status | Check if daemon is running | | npx vexrtc -monitor [N] | Open monitor UI for device #N (default: 1) |

Autostart behaviour

| Platform | Mechanism | Survives reboot | |---|---|---| | Linux | systemd --user service + loginctl enable-linger | Yes | | macOS | launchd agent (~/Library/LaunchAgents/) | Yes | | Windows | Task Scheduler ONLOGON task via VBScript | Yes |

The daemon restarts automatically if it crashes (Restart=always / KeepAlive: true).

Architecture

Target machine                          Monitor machine
┌─────────────────────┐                ┌─────────────────────┐
│  Electron daemon     │                │  npx vexrtc -monitor│
│  (hidden, no UI)     │                │  Express + browser  │
│                      │◄──── WebRTC ──►│                     │
│  getDisplayMedia()   │   P2P video    │  <video> fullscreen │
│  auto-captures       │   + data chan  │  mouse/kb events    │
│  primary screen      │                │  → data channel     │
└─────────┬───────────┘                └──────────┬──────────┘
          │                                        │
          └──────── Firebase RTDB signaling ───────┘
                  (offer / answer / ICE only)

Device slots — each target machine is assigned a slot number (1, 2, 3…) stored in Firebase. Monitors connect by slot number, not by user account. No authentication required.

Firebase RTDB: https://tovex-eab23-default-rtdb.firebaseio.com/

Install details

On first npx vexrtc -serve:

1. Copies package files to ~/.vexrtc/ (stable path for the OS service)
2. Runs npm install in ~/.vexrtc/frontend/ (downloads Electron, ~120 MB)
3. Builds the React frontend with Vite (skipped if pre-built dist is bundled)
4. Registers and starts the OS autostart service

Subsequent runs skip steps 2 and 3 if the dependencies and build are already present.

Logs are written to ~/.vexrtc/daemon.log.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ on the target machine (for the install step)
• No Node.js required on the monitor machine after the npm package is downloaded
• Internet access to Firebase RTDB for signaling
• Direct P2P path or STUN/TURN for video (standard WebRTC ICE)

Typical deployment

Factory floor / industrial machine:
  → run once:  npx vexrtc -serve
  → machine is now always available for remote connection

Engineer's laptop (anywhere in the world):
  → npx vexrtc -monitor 1
  → browser opens, full screen video + mouse/keyboard control