--- title: Take control of a physical iOS device via VNC description: We're contributing our open-sourced iOS VNC server to the community. source_url: html: https://testingbot.com/blog/ios-vnc md: https://testingbot.com/blog/ios-vnc.md --- # iOS VNC Server We're contributing our open-sourced iOS VNC server to the community. By [Jochen D.](https://testingbot.com/about/jochen-d)2020-05-28 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Post on Reddit Share link Today we're excited to open-source a feature that we've been using in production for the last 3 years: an iOS VNC Server. This will allow you to connect with your favorite VNC Client to a physical iOS device (no jailbreak required). The program streams the screen of the iOS device through VNC and listens for mouse and keyboard events. ## Setting it up To get started, please clone the git repository: [ios-vnc](https://github.com/testingbot/ios-vnc). Next, please install these dependencies: - `brew install libimobiledevice` - `brew install libpng` - `brew install libvncserver` - `brew install carthage` You can now build the project: `cd iOSVNCServer && make build` ## Dependencies To control the device, you will need to set up [WebDriverAgent](https://github.com/appium/WebDriverAgent). This project exposes a couple of endpoints to take control of the device. Once you've set this up correctly (signing and `./Scripts/bootstrap.sh`), you can run the WebDriverAgent project to expose the HTTP endpoint. ## Getting Started The WebDriverAgent project will output a response similar to `ServerURLHere->http://[SOME_IP]:8100<-ServerURLHere`. These values are required and need to be passed to our `iosvncserver`, together with the `udid` of the device: - To get the udid: `idevice_id -l` - Start a WebDriverAgent session: `curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d "{\"desiredCapabilities\":{\"bundleId\":\"com.apple.preferences\"}}" \ [SOME_IP]:8100/session` - Copy the sessionID from this response and pass it to our VNC server You can now run the VNC server: `./iosvncserver -u [udid] -H [SOME-IP] -P 8100 -S [session-id]` And that's it! You can now point your favorite VNC client to `localhost:5901` and you will be able to view and take control of the iOS device. ## Future plans In the future we hope to improve the performance of both the rendering and the controls. All Pull-Requests and suggestions are welcome. 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