Vesa

A cross-platform software KVM built in Rust. Share your keyboard and mouse across multiple computers over the network.

Features

• Zero-config encryption — QUIC transport with self-signed certificates (trust-on-first-use)
• Low-latency input — Datagrams for mouse/keyboard events, reliable streams for control messages
• Cross-platform — macOS (CGEventTap), Windows (Low-Level Hooks), Linux (evdev)
• Menu-bar app — System tray GUI (Tauri + Svelte), no Dock icon
• Lightweight protocol — Custom binary format, max 21 bytes per message

Quick Start

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev

Build

pnpm tauri build               # App bundle (.app / .msi / .AppImage)

How It Works

Server Machine                              Client Machine
┌──────────────┐    QUIC datagram    ┌──────────────┐
│  Input       │    (mouse/key)      │  Input       │
│  Capture     │ ──────────────────> │  Emulation   │
│              │    QUIC stream      │              │
│  (CGEventTap │ <────────────────>  │  (CGEvent    │
│   / LL Hook  │    (enter/leave)    │   / SendInput│
│   / evdev)   │                     │   / XTest)   │
└──────────────┘                     └──────────────┘

1. Move your cursor to the screen edge configured for a client
2. Vesa captures all keyboard and mouse input on the server
3. Input events are sent as QUIC datagrams (loss-tolerant, low-latency)
4. The client injects the events using native OS APIs
5. Press Escape (configurable) to release capture

Configuration

Vesa uses a TOML config file (~/.config/vesa/config.toml):

# Server mode
[server]
bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:4920"
release_hotkey = "Escape"

[[server.clients]]
name = "laptop"
position = "Right"

[[server.clients]]
name = "desktop"
position = "Left"

# Client mode
[client]
server_addr = "192.168.1.100:4920"
position = "Right"

Architecture

crates/
├── vesa-event     # Shared types (InputEvent, Position, ScreenBounds)
├── vesa-proto     # Binary protocol encode/decode
├── vesa-capture   # Input capture (macOS/Windows/Linux)
├── vesa-emulate   # Input injection (macOS/Windows/Linux)
├── vesa-net       # QUIC transport (Quinn) + self-signed certs
└── vesa-core      # Server/client orchestration + config
src-tauri/         # Tauri v2 backend (menu-bar app)
src/               # Svelte 5 frontend

Dependencies flow left-to-right: event ← proto ← net ← core ← tauri.

Platform Support

Platform	Capture	Emulation	Status
macOS	CGEventTap	CGEvent post HID	Implemented
Windows	SetWindowsHookExW	SendInput	Stub
Linux	evdev grab	XTest	Stub

macOS requires Accessibility permission. Vesa will prompt automatically on first launch.

Testing

cargo test               # Run all 55 tests
cargo clippy             # Zero warnings

Crate	Tests	Coverage
vesa-event	12	Type conversions, serde roundtrips
vesa-proto	15	Protocol encode/decode, error cases
vesa-net	8	QUIC loopback, certs, multi-connection
vesa-core	19	Config parsing, defaults, positions, edge detection

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Language	Rust (Edition 2024)
Runtime	Tokio
Transport	QUIC (Quinn 0.11)
TLS	rustls 0.23
Certificates	rcgen 0.13
macOS Input	core-graphics 0.25
GUI	Tauri v2 + Svelte 5
Config	TOML

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.

License

MIT