Ssh – Remotely turn off display output

sshvncxorg

I'm using x11vnc and SSH to tunnel VNC remotely to my local machine.

One of the interesting side-effects of this is that as I use my work computer from home, my coworkers will see me moving around my mouse, typing, etc. and can stand at my computer in the office and spectate everything.

Is there a way for me to disable display output remotely but still be able to VNC into my actual desktop as I left it? Preferably, stopping keyboard and mouse input for the duration of the session would be a good idea™.

Best Answer

You should be able to use xrandr to turn off a given display. 

$ xrandr --output CRT1 --off

To re-enable it:

$ xrandr --output CRT1 --auto

You can see the names of your output displays using xrandr -q:

$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1440 x 900, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected primary 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 303mm x 190mm
   1440x900       60.0*+   50.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

References

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