Remote dogtail server

The server allows you to run dogtail on a remote machine and returns an Atspi object, similar to a local launch. This allows you to interact with the remote application as with a native one.

Important notes

The server runs in an environment with a graphical user interface (GUI). The client must also be running a Linux OS with a GUI for proper processing and interaction with the Atspi object.

Before Running the Server

1. Install the required libraries (example for Debian-based systems):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-venv git build-essential pkg-config libcairo2-dev python3-dev libgirepository1.0-dev python3-pyatspi at-spi2-core 

2. Clone pyatspi repository

cd ~ && git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pyatspi2.git 

3. Check your at-spi2-core version:

sudo apt-cache policy at-spi2-core 

4. If necessary, switch the pyatspi repository to the corresponding version of at-spi2-core (e.g., version 2.46.1):

cd pyatspi
git checkout PYATSPI_2_46_1

Available tags can be found at: pyatspi2 history
5. Copy the pyatspi module to Python's library directory:

sudo cp -r ~/pyatspi2/pyatspi /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/

6. Enable desktop interaction:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface toolkit-accessibility true 

7. Make the launch file executable:

chmod +x start_dogtail_server

Running the Server

To start the server, use the following command:

./start_dogtail_server 4723

Where 4723 is the port on which the server will listen. The default port is 8080.

Client side

To use the service from a remote client, you need to connect to the server via RPyC and call the Dogtail startup method.
Example:

import rpyc

conn = rpyc.connect("10.10.10.10", 4723)

opts = {
    'app_path': '/path/to/application',
    'app_name': 'ApplicationName',
    'timeout': 30,
    'dumb': False
}

driver = conn.root.remote(opts, debug=True)

The driver will represent an absolutely identical Atspi object that is running on the remote machine.