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What happens when you open the desktop

  1. The CLI or the dashboard asks Boat for a new signed-in desktop URL for your sandbox.
  2. If the desktop stream is not ready, Boat prepares it.
  3. Boat opens the browser viewer.
The URL opens a browser page. For the default Moonlight stream, the URL looks like this:
For a VNC stream (--vnc), the URL points to a noVNC page:
Boat generates the host, the IDs, the password and the token for the running sandbox. If you use --public, or send publicAccess: true to POST /sandboxes/{sandboxId}/desktop?vnc=1, the noVNC URL has no _token.

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How the Moonlight viewer handles the token

  • The viewer removes the fragment from the URL at once.
  • The viewer sends the token in authenticated request headers and in the first WebSocket frame.
  • The viewer never puts the token in an HTTP or WebSocket request URL.

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Embed the stream in your app

To show the desktop inside your own product, put the default Moonlight URL in an iframe. To hide the viewer overlay, add overlay=0 to the query string. The side panel and the stats text then never show.
Add the parameter before the #. The token stays in the fragment.

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Security model

A desktop URL contains a desktop access token in its fragment. The URL can let a browser attach to that desktop session. Treat the URL as sensitive:
  • Do not paste the full URL into shared chats or logs.
  • To give another person access to a sandbox, use the correct Boat account and access controls. Do not share a desktop URL.

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After a stop, resume or fork

  • When you stop or archive a sandbox, the desktop is not available. Resume the sandbox to use it again.
  • Do not expect desktop processes to survive a resume or a fork. After a resume or a fork, open Chrome again and restart your app or dev server.
  • The computer tools come back by themselves. Boat restarts the desktop daemon behind them with the sandbox.