Bad display name "" when running via ssh about pynput HOT 10 CLOSED

On Linux, pynput uses X to control the keyboard.

When creating an X connection, the target display/session is specified with the $DISPLAY environment variable. When you run your script directly from the Pi, it will be set correctly since the terminal was launched from an X session, but when connecting through SSH it will not.

Get the value of $DISPLAY when you run the script locally on the Pi, and set it when running the script remotely:

$ ssh pi.local
$ DISPLAY=":0" python my-script.py

If you intend to pass keystrokes from your laptop to the Pi, please note the following:

• You will only be able to control an X session; you cannot emulate actual hardware presses. If you intent to control an application running in an X session, this is not a problem.
• Configuring X does not appear to be trivial. You will need to connect remotely to X.

A simple, untested, script to pass keystrokes is:

import os
import queue
from pynput import keyboard

q = queue.Queue()
with keyboard.Listener(
        on_press=lambda k: q.put_nowait((k, True)),
        on_release=lambda k: q.put_nowait((k, False))) as listener:
    os.environ['DISPLAY'] = os.environ['REMOTE_DISPLAY']
    controller = keyboard.Controller()
    while True:
        controller.touch(*q.get())

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If you decide to try, you may want to use this branch. The master branch will cause infinite feedback in the event loop.

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Hi, I am having the same issue. So I have created a remote SSH connection via putty to my Raspberry Pi. I can do this from both my Linux and Windows systems. I have a very simple Keylog script written in Python, and it runs smoothly, it saves keystrokes into a log file. I can't deploy this through the SSH connection though. The above example differs to mine because I want to save the output in a separate file.

Currently, when I run the script from the SSH environment, I get the same bad-display error. I thought the problem was to do with there being 2 keyboards to potentially log (both ends of the SSH connection) and this was causing problems. But I am still learning.

Is there a way to run this script on my Pi (Raspbian) from the SSH environment (Putty) and save my output into a log or text file?

BTW This is all above board, the raspberry Pi and computers are my own and I connect using my own username and password etc. I am studying computing and IT in Uni - first year, and just messing around with an activity we are doing.

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it says Key Error: 'REMOTE_DISPLAY'

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What if my linux-box doesn't have X installed? I have a debian machine without GUI. And I have encountered the same issue 'Bad display name ""'.

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In that case, pynput will not work; it is an X client. See #184 for a possible future solution.

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Hi,

After running via ssh on an embedded computer (on linux) my code who uses pynput package I get the error
Xlib.error.DisplayNameError: Bad display name ""
So I tried $ DISPLAY=":0" python my-script.py because I checked locally echo $DISPLAY and got : :0
But then I got this error : Xlib.error.DisplayConnectionError: Can't connect to display ":0": b'No protocol specified\n'

I want to use pynput's keypress detection on the embedded computer who only has a keyboard connected, while running the script on my laptop via ssh, is it possible ?

Thanks

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@spidy1996 @Remi-EA @raseribanez @jangid @wroscoe
After trying to find solution, I decided to write a simple library around this spesific issue: sshkeyboard

It allows you to react to user input even through SSH, and it is perfect for example for driving a RC car on Raspberry Pi.

It is many other ways inferior solution to pynput, but it does this one and only thing pretty well.

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@spidy1996 @Remi-EA @raseribanez @jangid @wroscoe After trying to find solution, I decided to write a simple library around this spesific issue: sshkeyboard

It allows you to react to user input even through SSH, and it is perfect for example for driving a RC car on Raspberry Pi.

It is many other ways inferior solution to pynput, but it does this one and only thing pretty well.

Hi @ollipal
i tried to run
from sshkeyboard import listen_keyboard

def press(key):
print(f"'{key}' pressed")

def release(key):
print(f"'{key}' released")

listen_keyboard(
on_press=press,
on_release=release,
)
but continually face with this error:
RuntimeError: asyncio.run() cannot be called from a running event loop
is there any solution for this?

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(@kasrakazemi I replied here)

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