FreeRDP 3.0 stable was released today as this open-source implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) for allowing nice remote access support.
FreeRDP 3.0 brings relative mouse movement support that is important for gaming via RDP, server-side MS-RDPEL channel support, clipboard improvements, fixed FFmpeg/AAC encoding, improved RPC gateway support, Opus audio support for GNOME Remote Desktop, server-side handling of the mouse cursor channel, AAD/AVX authentication, WebSocket Transport support, SmartCard authentication for TLS and NLA, full OpenSSL 3.x support, and numerous other features and fixes.
In the past two weeks since the prior release candidate, support has been added for AF_VSOCK, improvements to the new relative mouse input support, E2K CPU support in WinPR, Android mouse hover support, and other fixes and minor enhancements.
So this is an open-source server implementation of Windows RDP which I could install in Windows home builds and access it through RDP access client elsewhere?
I checked through their site and repo, binaries are built here. https://ci.freerdp.com/job/freerdp-nightly-windows/1439/arch=win64,label=vs2017/
But i’m not sure where to start. which one should I download?
Yes, you can indeed install them in Windows as well. sfreerdp is the main server binary, and wfreerdp is the main client.
Here’s a full explanation of what each file does:
freerdp-proxy.exe: This executable is a proxy server for RDP sessions. It’s used to forward, or ‘proxy’, RDP traffic between a client and a server. This can be useful for security, auditing, or network architectural reasons.
sdl-freerdp.exe: This binary is a version of the FreeRDP client that uses the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) for its graphical output. SDL is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low-level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware. This makes sdl-freerdp.exe useful for systems where a lightweight or more compatible graphical output method is needed.
sfreerdp-server.exe: This is the server component of the FreeRDP project. It allows a Windows machine to act as an RDP server, accepting connections from RDP clients. This can be particularly useful for testing or for setting up remote desktop services on systems where a full-fledged RDP server isn’t available or desired.
wfreerdp.exe: This executable is the standard FreeRDP client for Windows. It’s used to connect to RDP servers from a Windows machine. It provides a wide range of features and options typical of RDP clients, such as support for different color depths, audio redirection, and file system redirection.
winpr-hash.exe: This tool is part of the Windows Portable Runtime (WinPR) library, which is a part of FreeRDP. It’s used to create a NTLM hash from a username and password pair. The created hash can be outputed as plain hash or in SAM format.
winpr-makecert.exe: Also part of WinPR, this executable is used to create certificates. Certificates are crucial in secure communications, such as those used in RDP sessions. They are used to establish trust and encrypt data. This tool can be used to generate certificates for testing or for specific secure communication requirements within the RDP framework.
Thanks a lot for the thorough explanation. This is going to be real handy for users on Windows Home. I’m guessing once the server is installed, one can connect to it from any RDP client, without needing the wfreerdp client, right?
I use Remmina on my Linux Mint setup.
Yes, it should work with any RDP client. And Remmina actually uses Freerdp as the backend btw. :)
Install Apache guacamole to test it