Android : Handling keyboard input from a subclassed view

I have a subclassed view which is displaying a VNC session in it, the problem I am having is I need to handle keyboard input.

I have tried doing this.requestFocus() and then showing the keyboard but it seems like a very sketchy approach as focus seems to be lost randomly and causes some weird issues when the user closes the app.

What would be the easiest way to show the keyboard and allow the user to begin typing so I can then send the entered keys to the remote server? I have tried using onKeyUp but the view loses this event when it loses focus.