Remote SSH Headless Setup#

Remote SSH Headless Setup#
Author	Eric Dong
Difficulty	Intermediate

This is a guide to setup remote SSH into host to startup X server and sunshine without physical login and dummy plug. The virtual display is accelerated by the NVidia GPU using the TwinView configuration.

Attention

This guide is specific for Xorg and NVidia GPUs. I start the X server using the startx command. I also only tested this on an Artix runit init system on LAN. I didn’t have to do anything special with pulseaudio (pipewire untested).

Keep your monitors plugged in until the Checkpoint step

Tip

Prior to editing any system configurations, you should make a copy of the original file. This will allow you to use it for reference or revert your changes easily.

The Big Picture#

Once you are done, you will need to perform these 3 steps:

Turn on the host machine
Start sunshine on remote host with a script that:
- Edits permissions of /dev/uinput (added sudo config to execute script with no password prompt)
- Starts X server with startx on virtual display
- Starts Sunshine
Startup Moonlight on the client of interest and connect to host

Hint

As an alternative to SSH…

Step 2 can be replaced with autologin and starting sunshine as a service or putting sunshine & in your .xinitrc file if you start your X server with startx. In this case, the workaround for /dev/uinput permissions is not needed because the udev rule would be triggered for “physical” login. See Linux Setup. I personally think autologin compromises the security of the PC, so I went with the remote SSH route. I use the PC more than for gaming, so I don’t need a virtual display everytime I turn on the PC (E.g running updates, config changes, file/media server).

First we will setup the host and then the SSH Client (Which may not be the same as the machine running the moonlight client)

SSH Client Setup#

We will be setting up:

SSH Key Authentication Setup
SSH Client Script (Optional)

SSH Key Authentication Setup#

Setup your SSH keys with ssh-keygen and use ssh-copy-id to authorize remote login to your host. Run ssh <user>@<ip_address> to login to your host. SSH keys automate login so you don’t need to input your password!
Optionally setup a ~/.ssh/config file to simplify the ssh command
```
Host <some_alias>
    Hostname <ip_address>
    User <username>
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<your_private_key>
```
Now you can use ssh <some_alias>. ssh <some_alias> <commands/script> will execute the command or script on the remote host.

Checkpoint#

As a sanity check, let’s make sure your setup is working so far!

Test Steps

With your monitor still plugged into your Sunshine host PC:

ssh <alias>
~/scripts/sunshine.sh

nvidia-smi

You should see the sunshine and Xorg processing running:

nvidia-smi

Output:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 535.104.05             Driver Version: 535.104.05   CUDA Version: 12.2     |
|-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                      |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070        Off | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 30%   46C    P2              45W / 220W |    549MiB /  8192MiB |      2%      Default |
|                                         |                      |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                            |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                            GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                             Usage      |
|=======================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      1393      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                                86MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1440    C+G   sunshine                                    293MiB |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Check /dev/uinput permissions

ls -l /dev/uinput

Output:

crw------- 1 <user> <primary_group> 10, 223 Aug 29 17:31 /dev/uinput

Connect to Sunshine host from a moonlight client

Now kill X and sunshine by running pkill X on the host, unplug your monitors from your GPU, and repeat steps 1 - 5. You should get the same result. With this setup you don’t need to modify the Xorg config regardless if monitors are plugged in or not.

pkill X

SSH Client Script (Optional)#

At this point you have a working setup! For convenience I created this bash script to automate the startup of the X server and Sunshine on the host. This can be run on Unix systems, or on Windows using the git-bash or any bash shell.

For Android/iOS you can install Linux emulators, e.g. Userland for Android and ISH for iOS. The neat part is that you can execute one script to launch Sunshine from your phone or tablet!

#!/bin/bash

ssh_args="<user>@192.168.X.X" # Or use alias set in ~/.ssh/config

check_ssh(){
  result=1
   # Note this checks infinitely, you could update this to have a max # of retries
  while [[ $result -ne 0 ]]
  do
    echo "checking host..."
    ssh $ssh_args "exit 0" 2>/dev/null
    result=$?
    [[ $result -ne 0 ]] && {
       echo "Failed to ssh to $ssh_args, with exit code $result"
    }
    sleep 3
  done
  echo "Host is ready for streaming!"
}

start_stream(){
  echo "Starting sunshine server on host..."
  echo "Start moonlight on your client of choice"
   # -f runs ssh in the background
  ssh -f $ssh_args "~/scripts/sunshine.sh &"
}

check_ssh
start_stream
exit_code=${?}

sleep 3
exit ${exit_code}

Next Steps#

Congrats you can now stream your desktop headless! When trying this the first time, keep your monitors close by incase something isn’t working right.

If you have any feedback and any suggestions, feel free to make a post on Discord!

Remote SSH Headless Setup#

The Big Picture#

Host Setup#

Static IP Setup#

SSH Server Setup#

Virtual Display Setup#

Uinput Permissions Workaround#

Stream Launcher Script#

SSH Client Setup#

SSH Key Authentication Setup#

Checkpoint#

SSH Client Script (Optional)#

Next Steps#