Keylogger for diagnosing application issues

September 1, 2006 7:59 AM

Keylogger needed - I need a simple keylogger (that preferably snows keyboard scancodes) that will operate when the application does not have focus.

I am having an issue on a terminal server (Windows 2000 Server) where some users (specifically connected with RDESKTOP in Linux) are losing a number pad keystroke the first time they type it. I would like to see if the RDESKTOP clients are sending a different keystroke than the MSTSC clients.

I would like an application that does not have to be installed, does not do any fancy hiding or covert action. Preferably free.

posted by SirStan to computers & internet (7 comments total)

xev?
posted by dorian at 9:04 AM on September 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

It needs to run on the Windows Terminal Server, as I want to record what the Windows client does vs the Linux client. I dont want the clients view of it, I want to know how the server interptrets it.

THx
posted by SirStan at 9:14 AM on September 1, 2006

Then you don't actually want a keylogger. A packet sniffer like Ethereal running on the Windows box would let you see the TCP traffic from a given client, but then you'd have to dig through the rdesktop protocol to figure out what it means. (Maybe some packet sniffer out there knows the protocol and can give annotated results -- that would be what to look for.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:02 AM on September 1, 2006

Ethereal? Don't you mean WireShark?
posted by ostranenie at 10:10 AM on September 1, 2006

Yes, I want a keylogger. The server is still presented with keystrokes, though remotely. I want to know how the server is interpreting those keystrokes.

MSTSC traffic is encrypted, so a a packet sniffer isn't going to help here.
posted by SirStan at 12:48 PM on September 1, 2006

Why does it have to operate when the application doesn't have focus? Couldn't you ask your users to try hitting the keypad keys in the keylogger? It would be very simple to set up a local web page with some JavaScript to display or log keycodes and try it from both the Linux rdesktop client and the Windows client.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 5:14 PM on September 1, 2006

The issue is that the operation works fine in any application except one (A terminal app).


Typing:

a(number pad)23434

Works fine in Excel, Notepad, etc.. but not in this terminal all.

a(top numbers)23434 works fine though.
posted by SirStan at 8:47 PM on September 1, 2006