Long-form article for the project website covering SunRay history,
why it mattered, what went wrong, and how WayRay modernizes every
aspect: QUIC transport, content-adaptive encoding, smartphone
proximity tokens, pluggable window management, federation, protocol
gateways, and illumos as primary platform.
When at a friend's or customer's site, the client connects directly
to the user's own server over the internet -- no local server involved,
no federation needed. The thin client is just a screen + network.
- ADR-014: Add scenarios 4b/4c (friend's house, BYOD on-site),
server selection UI, three-category taxonomy (direct remote,
federation, sandboxing)
- ADR-013: BLE beacon payload now includes server address so the
phone tells any terminal where to find the user's desktop
Unified mechanism for two related problems:
- Federation: windows from remote WayRay servers appear in local
desktop (B2B invites, cross-org app sharing, visiting consultants)
- Sandboxing: windows from isolated local environments (illumos zones,
containers) appear alongside trusted local windows
Three display modes:
- Desktop-in-desktop (full remote session in a window)
- Merged windows (seamless per-window integration with local WM)
- App embedding (future: subsurface portal)
Trust-level visual indicators (Local/Trusted/Sandboxed/Untrusted),
input isolation per trust level, B2B invite flow, server-to-server
mutual TLS federation, and OIDC-based dynamic trust chains.
Same ForeignWindow protocol for both remote (QUIC) and local (Unix
socket) sources. illumos zones as natural sandboxing primitive.
Add wireless charging pad mode -- phone on Qi pad acts as smart card
in a reader slot. NFC provides crisp insert/remove semantics without
RSSI ambiguity. Combined NFC+BLE mode for heartbeat during brief
NFC interrupts. Configurable per-deployment: centimeter range (pad)
vs meter range (pocket) vs combined.
Phone acts as wireless smart card -- walk up to terminal, session
appears; walk away, session suspends. No insertion, works from pocket.
- BLE beacon with encrypted rotating session token
- RSSI-based proximity detection with configurable thresholds
- Anti-flapping timers: T_attach (2s) and T_detach (10s)
- Security: HMAC timestamps, token rotation, optional NFC tap
- Companion app (Android/iOS): one-time OIDC setup, background BLE
- Implements same TokenProvider trait as smart cards (ADR-004)
- NFC as explicit complement, WiFi/mDNS as software fallback
The greeter bridges cloud identity to local user context:
- Device Authorization Grant (RFC 8628) as recommended flow
for thin clients (QR code, no browser needed on server)
- Authorization Code with PKCE as alternative
- Claims-to-user mapping (IdP sub/email/groups -> local uid/gids)
- Auto-provisioning on first login (useradd, ZFS home dataset)
- Pluggable auth architecture (local, OIDC, smart card, Kerberos)
- Ephemeral pre-auth session for greeter display
- Session launcher interface unchanged regardless of auth method
illumos has /dev/fb0 via the gfxp_bitmap driver on UEFI GOP systems,
exposing the classic SunOS fbio(4I) interface. Userspace can mmap the
framebuffer and write pixels directly -- proven by xf86-video-illumosfb.
New four-tier architecture:
- Tier 0: Bare-metal /dev/fb0 (illumos fbio + Linux fbdev). No X11.
- Tier 1: X11 SHM (portable fallback, also dev mode)
- Tier 2: Loopback shared memory (co-located optimization)
- Tier 3: DRM/KMS (Linux, rare illumos)
Includes implementation sketch with SIMD non-temporal stores for
write-combining memory (SSE2/AVX2/AVX-512 runtime selection).
WayRay must work as a local desktop compositor, not just remote.
Three-tier approach:
- Tier 1: Custom X11 SHM backend (PixmanRenderer + XShmPutImage).
Works on any illumos system with X11, even VESA-only GPUs.
- Tier 2: Loopback optimization for co-located server+client,
shared memory buffer ring skipping encode/decode entirely.
- Tier 3: DRM/KMS backend for Linux or accelerated illumos GPUs.
Same compositor core, different output backend. Validated by
cocoa-way (Smithay on macOS) using the same headless+present pattern.
WayRay is a compositor, not a DE or login system. GNOME/KDE cannot
run on WayRay (they ARE compositors). The desktop is composed from
independent Wayland clients (pluggable WM + panel + launcher + apps).
- ADR-010: Greeter as Wayland client, external session launcher
handles PAM/user env (like greetd for Sway)
- Clarify scope: WayRay owns compositor session + token binding,
not user auth, home dirs, or environment setup
- Update roadmap with greeter phase and session.toml config
- Update architecture overview with scope boundary section
