LinuxCommandLibrary

rdesktop

Remote Desktop Protocol client

TLDR

Connect to a remote computer (default port is 3389)

$ rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] [host:port]
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Simple Examples
$ rdesktop -u Administrator -p passwd123 192.168.1.111:3389
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Connect to a remote computer with full screen (press Ctrl + Alt + Enter to exist)
$ rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] -f [host:port]
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Use the customed resolution (use the letter 'x' between the number)
$ rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] -g 1366x768 [host:port]
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Connect to a remote computer using domain user
$ rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] -d [domainname] [host:port]
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Use the 16-bit color (speed up)
$ rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] -a 16 [host:port]
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SYNOPSIS

rdesktop [options] server[:port]

DESCRIPTION

rdesktop is a client for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), used in a num‐ ber of Microsoft products including Windows NT Terminal Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server.

OPTIONS

-u Username for authentication on the server. -d Domain for authentication. -s Startup shell for the user - starts a specific application in‐ stead of Explore. If SeamlessRDP is enabled this is the appli‐ cation which i started in seamless mode. -c The initial working directory for the user. Often used in com‐ bination with -s to set up a fixed login environment. -p The password to authenticate with. Note that this may have no effect if "Always prompt for password" is enabled on the server. WARNING: if you specify a password on the command line it may be visible to other users when they use tools like ps. Use -p - to make rdesktop request a password at startup (from standard in‐ put). -n Client hostname. Normally rdesktop automatically obtains the hostname of the client. -k Keyboard layout to emulate. This requires a corresponding keymap file to be installed. The standard keymaps provided with rdesktop follow the RFC1766 naming scheme: a language code fol‐ lowed by a country code if necessary - e.g. en-us, en-gb, de, fr, sv, etc. The default keyboard map depends on the current locale (LC_* and LANG environment variables). If the current locale is unknown, the default keyboard map is en-us (a US English keyboard). The keyboard maps are file names, which means that they are case sensitive. The standard keymaps are all in lowercase. The keyboard maps are searched relative to the directories $HOME/.rdesktop/keymaps, KEYMAP_PATH (specified at build time), and $CWD/keymaps, in this order. The keyboard-map argument can also be an absolute filename. The special value `none' can be used instead of a keyboard map. In this case, rdesktop will guess the scancodes from the X11 event key codes using an internal mapping method. This method only supports the basic alphanumeric keys and may not work prop‐ erly on all platforms so its use is discouraged. -g Desktop geometry (WxH). If geometry is the special word "workarea", the geometry will be fetched from the extended win‐ dow manager hints property _NET_WORKAREA, from the root window. The geometry can also be specified as a percentage of the whole screen, e.g. "-g 80%". If the specified geometry depends on the screen size, and the screen size is changed, rdesktop will automatically reconnect using the new screen size. This requires that rdesktop has been compiled with RandR support. -i Use password as smartcard pin. If a valid user certificate is matched in smart card reader the password passed with p argument is used as pin for the smart card. This feature also requires that smart card redirection is used using r scard argument. -f Enable fullscreen mode. This overrides the window manager and causes the rdesktop window to fully cover the current screen. Fullscreen mode can be toggled at any time using Ctrl-Alt-Enter. -b Force the server to send screen updates as bitmaps rather than using higher-level drawing operations. -t Disable use of remote control. This will disable features like seamless connection sharing. -A Enable SeamlessRDP by specifying the path to seamless rdp shell. In this mode, rdesktop creates a X11 window for each window on the server side. This mode requires the SeamlessRDP server side component, which is available from http://www.cendio.com/seam‐ lessrdp/. When using this option, you should normally specify a startup shell which launches the desired application through Seamless‐ RDP. Example: rdesktop -A 'c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe' -s 'notepad' mywts.domain.com Any subsequential call to the above commandline example will make use of the seamless connection sharing feature which spawns another notepad in the current connection to the specified server and then exit. -B Use the BackingStore of the Xserver instead of the integrated one in rdesktop. -e Disable encryption. This option is only needed (and will only work) if you have a French version of NT TSE. -E Disable encryption from client to server. This sends an en‐ crypted login packet, but everything after this is unencrypted (including interactive logins). -m Do not send mouse motion events. This saves bandwidth, although some Windows applications may rely on receiving mouse motion. -C Use private colourmap. This will improve colour accuracy on an 8-bit display, but rdesktop will appear in false colour when not focused. -D Hide window manager decorations, by using MWM hints. -K Do not override window manager key bindings. By default rdesk‐ top attempts to grab all keyboard input when it is in focus. -S