lamco-rdp-server

Wayland-native RDP server for Linux desktop sharing

Connect to your Linux desktop from any RDP client (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android). Built in Rust on IronRDP with native Wayland support via XDG Desktop Portal and PipeWire.

Product Page  |  Download  |  Open Source Crates

Highlights

• Wayland-first -- XDG Desktop Portal for screen capture and input, no X11 required
• H.264 via EGFX -- AVC420 and AVC444 for crystal-clear text at full chroma resolution
• Hardware encoding -- VA-API (Intel/AMD) and NVENC (NVIDIA) support
• Adaptive streaming -- SIMD-optimized damage detection, 5-60 FPS based on activity
• Clipboard sync -- bidirectional text and image clipboard via Portal or Klipper
• GUI configuration -- graphical settings tool built with iced
• 355 tests passing -- comprehensive test coverage across all modules

Downloads

Pre-built packages are available from GitHub Releases and lamco.ai/download.

The source tarball on the Releases page includes vendored dependencies for offline builds.

Platform Support

Notes:

• GNOME 40-44 (RHEL 9) lacks Portal clipboard because RemoteDesktop v1 predates the clipboard API.
• KDE Portal clipboard has a known bug (KDE#515465) on Plasma 6.3.90-6.5.5. Klipper D-Bus cooperation works on all KDE versions as a fallback.
• wlroots compositors need native install for input and clipboard; Flatpak provides video-only on these desktops.
• COSMIC and Niri support is blocked on upstream Smithay libei.

For the full compatibility matrix with portal versions, session persistence, and deployment recommendations, see the product page.

Quick Start

# Generate TLS certificates
./scripts/generate-certs.sh

# Start the server
lamco-rdp-server -c config.toml -vv

# Or use the GUI
lamco-rdp-server-gui

Then connect from any RDP client (Windows Remote Desktop, FreeRDP, Remmina, etc.) to port 3389.

Building from Source

Requirements: Rust 1.85+, OpenSSL dev, PipeWire dev, nasm (optional, 3x faster OpenH264)

cargo build --release                                    # software H.264
cargo build --release --features gui                     # with configuration GUI
cargo build --release --features "gui,vaapi"             # with VA-API hardware encoding
cargo build --release --features "gui,wayland,libei"     # full-featured for wlroots

Architecture

lamco-rdp-server/
  src/
    server/         RDP listener, TLS, session management
    rdp/            Channel multiplexing (EGFX, clipboard, audio, input)
    egfx/           H.264 encoding pipeline (OpenH264, VA-API, NVENC)
    clipboard/      Clipboard orchestration (Portal, Klipper, wl-clipboard)
    damage/         SIMD tile-based frame differencing
    session/        XDG Desktop Portal strategies and persistence
    gui/            Configuration GUI (iced)
  bundled-crates/
    lamco-clipboard-core/     Clipboard protocol core
    lamco-rdp-clipboard/      IronRDP clipboard backend
  packaging/        Flatpak manifest, systemd units, polkit, D-Bus config

Open Source Foundation

lamco-rdp-server is built on a set of published Rust crates available on crates.io:

These crates are MIT/Apache-2.0 licensed. See lamco.ai/open-source for documentation and details.

The server also depends on a fork of IronRDP that adds MS-RDPEGFX Graphics Pipeline Extension and clipboard file transfer support. Contributions to upstream IronRDP are in progress.

Troubleshooting

First connection fails, second succeeds -- Normal TLS behavior. The RDP client rejects the self-signed certificate on first attempt, then retries after accepting it. The acceptance is cached for subsequent connections.

Clipboard not working (Flatpak) -- Portal clipboard requires RemoteDesktop v2 (GNOME 45+, KDE Plasma 6.3+). On RHEL 9 and other older distributions with RemoteDesktop v1, clipboard is unavailable in Portal mode.

Permission dialog on every start -- GNOME deliberately does not persist RemoteDesktop sessions. This is a compositor policy decision, not a bug. KDE Plasma supports session tokens.

"Unknown (not in Wayland session?)" -- Cosmetic. Flatpak sandboxes hide XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP. The server queries D-Bus directly for portal capabilities regardless.

License

Business Source License 1.1 (BSL)

• Free for non-profits and small businesses (<3 employees, <$1M revenue)
• Commercial license: $49.99/year or $99.00 perpetual per server
• Converts to Apache License 2.0 on 2028-12-31

See lamco.ai/products/lamco-rdp-server for pricing details.

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Please open an issue before starting significant work.