[pulseaudio-discuss] pulseaudio and remote desktop

[Laxmikant Rashinkar]

Arun Raghavan wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-03-12 at 15:42 -0700, LK Rashinkar wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Background:
>> Xrdp is an open source RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) server that
>> runs on Unices.  It allows RDP clients running on Windows and Unices
>> to connect to it and presents a Unix desktop on the client computer.
>> So for example from a Windows 7 computer I can connect to an Xrdp
>> server running on my Ubuntu system and I will then have access to
>> my Ubuntu desktop on the Windows 7 computer.
>>
>> The problem:
>> Xrdp does not yet support audio redirection, which means that RDP
>> clients that connect to it cannot cannot hear any music/sound that is
>> played on the server.
>>
>> RDP protocol has built in features that supports audio redirection.
>> What I need to understand is how to use Pulseaudio to read audio data
>> on a per user login basis, without playing any of the sound on the physical
>> speaker on the server. For example, lets say I am logged into my ubuntu
>> system and I'm playing a youtube video. User A  and User B login via
>> xrdp and they both start playing different youtube videos. The audio
>> from User A and B should not be played on the speaker on the server
>> and I need a way to read the audio data from User A and B and
>> using Pulseaudio.
>>
>> I'm sure PA has support for this, but if someone can guide me in the
>> right direction, it will be helpful.
> 
> You could make a null sink and make it the default (preferably only
> sink, so users can't play anything locally). You could then use the
> monitor source to feed data to RDP.
> 
> -- Arun
> 

Hi Arun,

thanks for both your replies. I tried out your NULL sink idea and it works
just fine for me. I was able to play a MP3 file and youtube video simultaneously
and both got recorded by reading from null monitor source. So I'll go the null
sink way.

One quick question though. Is it possible to rename the NULL sink dynamically
to something else, say xrdp_sync?

thanks for your help.
L.K