🖥️ AnyDesk Clone

A Python remote desktop application built from scratch using socket programming. Streams a host machine's screen to a remote client in real time and supports remote mouse & keyboard control — replicating the core functionality of tools like AnyDesk and TeamViewer.

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✨ Features

• 📡 Real-time screen capture & transmission over TCP sockets
• 🏗️ Clean client-server architecture
• ⚡ Low-latency frame streaming using Python sockets

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🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Language	Python 3.x
Networking	TCP Socket Programming
Screen Capture	Pillow (PIL) / PyAutoGUI
Remote Control	PyAutoGUI
Data Transfer	socket + pickle / struct

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🏗️ Architecture

┌──────────────────────┐             TCP             ┌──────────────────────┐
│    HOST (server.py)  │ ──────────────────────────► │  CLIENT (client.py)  │
│                      │   Compressed screen frames  │                      │
│  Captures screen     │ ◄────────────────────────── │  Displays stream     │
│  Executes commands   │   Mouse & keyboard events   │  Sends input events  │
└──────────────────────┘                             └──────────────────────┘

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• Both machines on the same network (or use port forwarding for remote)

Installation

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/senseihx4/anydesk-clone.git
cd anydesk-clone

# Install dependencies
pip install pillow pyautogui opencv-python numpy

Running

Step 1 — Start the server on the host machine (the one being controlled):

python server.py

Note the IP address shown in the terminal.

Step 2 — Start the client on the remote machine:

python client.py
# Enter the host IP when prompted

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📁 Project Structure

anydesk-clone/
├── server.py       # Host side — captures screen, receives input events
├── client.py       # Client side — displays stream, sends mouse/KB events
├── utils.py        # Shared helpers (compression, encoding)
└── requirements.txt

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🔮 Planned Improvements

• SSL/TLS encrypted connection
• Session password protection
• File transfer between machines
• GUI for connection setup (Tkinter)
• FPS counter & quality selector
• Cross-platform packaging (.exe / .app)

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💡 What I Learned

• How TCP sockets work for real-time data streaming
• Screen capture and frame compression techniques
• Serializing and deserializing data with pickle and struct
• Building a client-server system from scratch without any networking libraries

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👨‍💻 Author

Kartik Sharma — GitHub · LinkedIn