General overview

Goal

My goal here is to be able to play on my PC remotely from a portable device (laptop, tablet or phone) .

I used steamlink first to play through the Internet. It worked well and did not need to have additional setup (no vpn or additional port in/out manual setup on my computer or router).

I also want my computer to be able to go to sleep to save energy and be able to wake it up remotely. I needed a solution to send magic packet (wake on lan) safely so Wireguard VPN comes in action.

TeamViewer / ruskDesk / Remote Desktop / Moonlight feedbacks

Unfortunately, on my last macOS update, steamlink kept crashing after the update. I had no other choice to give up and look up for another alternative. I’ve tried:

  • Teamviewer:
    • advantage: simple and quick setup
    • drawbacks:
      • Close source
      • Issue in terms of performance for gaming
      • Major issue: no possiblity to self host
  • rustDesk:
    • advantages:
      • Opensource
      • Self-host (I was able to use it with a VPN) AND through their servers
    • drawbacks:
      • Setup using rustDesk servers is apparently not very good in terms of performance (not tested myself though)
      • Setup was a bit quirky for self-host setup (and I wanted it this way since it is more secure)
      • Major issue on gaming: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/issues/2525
  • Windows Remote Desktop
    • advantage: Coming with Windows so no additional setup needed (if you have professional Windows)
    • drawbacks:
      • RDP server only comes with Windows Professional. If you have a Home edition, you’ll need to do additional setup to enable it.
      • Performance issues on gaming
      • WAN setup is not advised
  • Sunshine(server) / Moonlight(client)
    • advantages:
      • open-source
      • self-host
      • can work on LAN and WAN
      • client can be installed on mobile as well
    • drawbacks:
      • Only works with Nvidia graphic cards

Setup schema

My steamlink setup:

flowchart LR
    remote[remote device]-. ssh through wireguard .-> pi[raspberry pi]
    pi -- send magic packet if PC is in sleep mode --> pc
    steamlink -- play through internet --> steam

    subgraph remote
        steamlink
    end
    subgraph LAN
        pi
        pc
    end
    subgraph pc[windows PC]
        steam
    end

    style LAN fill:#f66

My moonlight/sunshine setup:

flowchart LR
    remote[remote device]-. ssh through wireguard .-> pi[raspberry pi]
    pi -- send magic packet if PC is in sleep mode --> pc
    moonlight -. play through wireguard vpn .-> sunshine 
    sunshine --> steam
    sunshine --> desktop

    subgraph remote
        moonlight
    end
    subgraph LAN
        pi
        pc
    end
    subgraph pc[windows PC]
        sunshine
        desktop
        steam
    end

    style LAN fill:#f66

Installation steps

  1. Create a dynDNS address (using for instance https://www.noip.com/) [1]
  2. Setup your dynDNS on your router [2]
    1. Personally, I have a livebox so the setup is under Configuration avancée > Réseau > DynDNS dyndns.png
  3. Install wireguard on your raspberry using piVPN [1]
  4. Install wakeonlan command on raspberry pi [3]
    sudo apt install etherwake
  5. On your host device,
    • enable Remote Play in your Steam settings
    • OR install sunshine
  6. On your remote device,
    1. install wireguard “client”
    2. install steamlink OR moonlight

Play steps

  1. Connect to your wireguard VPN
  2. (Optional) To run only if your PC is in sleep mode:
    1. SSH to your raspberry pi using wireguard IP
    2. Send magic package to your PC from raspberry pi
    wakeonlan <PC mac address>
  3. Start steamlink/moonlight on your client and connect to your PC

Sources