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I'm wondering if there is a tool (or a tool-set) to record every single X11 message received from the server, to post-render them in a movie. I think this could be very useful to create screen-cast: theoretically, it should reproduces perfectly the capture and, once serialized to a stream, it should be less memory-expensive w.r.t. a classic video (I just suppose it).

Does anybody know anything about it?

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    Have you tried Wireshark? Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 14:57
  • Also, X11 messages usually go from the client to the server for display. Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 14:58
  • Mmh, yeah, I used WS to take a look at the protocol, but I was looking for an application that can do something more specific. Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 15:01

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If what you want is recording what happens on X server's output (i.e. in the final framebuffer), you can try ffmpeg - its man page has an example:

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s cif -r 25 -i :0.0 /tmp/out.mpg

Note that the X protocol is something different - messages are passed between the clients and the server almost all the time and they don't necessarily have to carry any graphical information (they can pertain to input events, damage events - i.e. part of client's window being revealed, etc.).

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  • Well, it's not exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm not even sure that what I have in my mind is really possible. However I prefer this solution over the Nils' one, 'cause it doesn't need a VNC infrastructure. Commented Sep 5, 2013 at 8:23
  • If you really wanted to eavesdrop the X protocol events and render them (later), you'd basically be re-implementing an X server. Which is probably not what you really want. Hooking something into the existing X server might be easier. Commented Sep 5, 2013 at 21:14
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Have a look at rfbproxy. This allows you to capture a whole screen session (not an X11-window) into a file. It only records a picture if there has been a screen-change, so this is quite effective. The resulting file can be compressed afterwards, too.

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  • Actually, when I start to looking for this kind of program, I thought that a good solution could be a proxy that it can intercept X11 protocol and it can manipulate messages (e.g. to filter only window and GC commands relative to a specific WID) Commented Sep 5, 2013 at 8:25

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