The desktop client

When the exam really matters, the browser isn’t enough.

Institra Desktop opens the exam in one fullscreen window with no tabs and no address bar, runs the camera inside it, and reports to the professor exactly what it managed to enforce on that machine — a reading, not a claim. Windows, macOS and Ubuntu differ in what an operating system will allow, and it says which one it is on.

✓ One window, one exam — every other link, pop-up and download is refused
✓ Refuses to start with a second display, inside a virtual machine, or beside an open browser
✓ Camera proctoring runs inside the locked window — no live camera, no questions
✓ Exams can require it — a normal browser is politely turned away, and the server checks the client on every request

💻

Institra Desktop

Built in Bengaluru

Ubuntu 24.04+: Public download
macOS: On request
Windows: On request

Download for Ubuntu

The Ubuntu package is public, with its checksum and its real limits on the page. macOS and Windows are hand-delivered until their installers are signed.

Downloads

Get Institra Desktop

Ubuntu is a public download: a Debian package needs no signing, so we can hand it straight to you. macOS and Windows still come from us — their installers are not signed yet, and an unsigned public download is one the operating system warns every student about. We would rather say that than ship a frightening button.

Ubuntu

Public download

24.04 LTS or newer, 64-bit (amd64). Installs with apt like any other package.

Version: 0.3.0-beta.3
Download: about 85 MB
On disk: about 315 MB

Download the .deb

AppImage · Checksums · All releases

A beta, and not signed by any Ubuntu key — step 2 below is how you check that the file you received is the file we built.

macOS

On request

The macOS build is written and it compiles, but it is not notarised and has not been through a hardware pass. Gatekeeper would warn every student who opened a public download of it.

Ask us and we send you the build and set it up with you. When it is notarised it appears here, next to Ubuntu.

Windows

On request

Windows is where the client can lock down the most. The installer still needs a code-signing certificate; without one, Windows warns every student who runs it.

So this one is hand-delivered too. Tell us about your exams and we will get it onto your lab machines.

Installing it on Ubuntu

Four steps, about two minutes.

Download the package and its checksums

curl -fL -o institra-desktop-amd64.deb https://institra.in/download/ubuntu
curl -fL -o SHA256SUMS.txt https://institra.in/download/checksums

Or use the button above; the commands are here so you can see exactly where the file comes from.

2
Check what you got, before you install it
```
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS.txt
```
It must print institra-desktop-amd64.deb: OK. If it prints anything else, stop and email contact@institra.in. Nothing about a proctoring client should be taken on trust.
3
Install it with apt
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ./institra-desktop-amd64.deb
```
The leading ./ is what makes apt treat it as a file rather than a package name. apt then pulls the nine libraries it needs from Ubuntu's own archive. Do not reach for dpkg -i: it does not fetch dependencies and leaves the package half-configured. If you already did, sudo apt --fix-broken install repairs it.
4

Open it

Search for Institra Desktop in the Activities overview, or run institra-desktop in a terminal. Sign in with the account your institute gave you. To remove it later: sudo apt remove institra-desktop.

If you cannot install packages, use the AppImage▾

The .deb is the better choice wherever you can use it: it sets up the Chromium sandbox that Ubuntu 24.04 otherwise restricts, and it needs no extra libraries. The AppImage needs FUSE 2, which 24.04 does not ship.

sudo apt install libfuse2
chmod +x institra-desktop-x86_64.AppImage
./institra-desktop-x86_64.AppImage

If you cannot install libfuse2 either, run it as ./institra-desktop-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run. Never pass --no-sandbox to an exam client, whatever a forum tells you.

What it does on Ubuntu, exactly

Ubuntu is not Windows, and we will not pretend otherwise. The client reports what it actually managed to enforce on your machine, and your professor sees the same report.

Enforced

✓One fullscreen window with no tabs and no address bar. It loads only the exam it was started for; every other link, pop-up and download is refused.
✓The close button, Alt+F4 and a polite kill are all refused while the exam is locked, and each attempt is recorded.
✓It refuses to start with a second display connected, inside a virtual machine, or with a web browser open — and names the browser to close.
✓Paste, drag-and-drop and the middle-click paste on Xorg are made inert inside the exam page, and the clipboard is cleared every half-second while the exam is locked.
✓Your camera runs inside that same window. No live camera, no questions — and if it drops mid-exam the questions are covered until it is back.
✓Every five seconds it re-reads the process list and reports a screen recorder or a flagged app starting mid-exam.

Not enforced — recorded instead

!App switching. Ubuntu's default Wayland desktop does not let any application hold the keyboard, so Alt+Tab and the Super key still work. Every switch away is recorded, with a count, and your professor sees it.
!Screenshots and screen recording. No application can block screen capture on Ubuntu, this one included, on Wayland or on Xorg. A recorder that is already running is reported.
!On Wayland the client cannot name the application that took the focus — only that focus was lost. On Xorg it can name it.
!A forced kill or a power cut. No application can refuse those on any operating system. It is reported when the client next starts, and your professor's live monitor shows the feed stop.

For a stricter session, pick Xorg

Sign out, click the gear on the Ubuntu login screen and choose Ubuntu on Xorg before typing your password. There the shortcuts the client asks for are actually caught, and it can name the app that took focus. It still reports app switching as partial, never blocked: the window manager gets some combinations first, and there is no keyboard grab in this build. Screen capture stays unblockable either way.

Added up, the posture the client reports on a clean Ubuntu laptop is reduced, not strong — the same word your professor sees on their monitor. We would rather you knew that before the exam than after it.

The full terms are in Terms of Service, and what the client reports about your machine is in the Privacy Policy. You install and run it at your own choice; it makes no changes to your computer beyond the exam session.