rdesktop is a free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

, open source

Open-source software

Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

 client for Microsoft's proprietary

Proprietary protocol

In telecommunications, a proprietary protocol is a communications protocol owned by a single organization or individual.-Enforcement:Proprietors may enforce restrictions through patents and by keeping the protocol specification a trade secret...

 RDP

Remote Desktop Protocol

Remote Desktop Protocol is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft, which provides a user with a graphical interface to another computer. The protocol is an extension of the ITU-T T.128 application sharing protocol. Clients exist for most versions of Microsoft Windows , Linux, Unix, Mac OS...

 protocol. It is released under the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

 and is available on Unix-like

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

 systems such as BSD

Berkeley Software Distribution

Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...

 and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

.

As of April 2011, rdesktop implements a large subset of the RDP 5 protocol, including:

• Bitmap caching
• File system, audio, serial port and printer port redirection
• Mappings for most international keyboards
• Stream compression and encryption
• Automatic authentication
• Smartcard support
• RemoteApp like support called "seamless" mode via SeamlessRDP

Still unimplemented are:

• Network Level Authentication
  Network Level Authentication
  Network Level Authentication is a technology used in Remote Desktop Services or Remote Desktop Connection that requires the connecting user to authenticate themselves before a session is established with the server. Originally, if you opened an RDP to a server it would load the login screen...
  
  
• Client redirection upon reconnect (of disconnected session)
• Remote Assistance requests
• USB device redirection

Support for the additional features available in RDP 5.1 and RDP 6 (including multi-head display spanning, window composition

Compositing window manager

A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...

 and console connection) have not yet been implemented, although some have been officially documented on MSDN.

Use

rdesktop is commonly used on desktop Linux installations to connect to Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 computers running Remote Desktop Services, including Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 Terminal Server

Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...

, Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...

, Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009 and launched on October 22, 2009. According to the Windows Server Team blog, the retail availability was September 14, 2009. It is built on Windows NT 6.1, the same core...

, and Windows 7. The program has also been integrated into several thin client

Thin client

A thin client is a computer or a computer program which depends heavily on some other computer to fulfill its traditional computational roles. This stands in contrast to the traditional fat client, a computer designed to take on these roles by itself...

 Linux distributions like Thinstation

Thinstation

Thinstation is a free and open source Linux implementation of a thin client operating system. It only requires standard 32-bit x86 PC hardware and can boot directly from the network via PXE or Etherboot from a TFTP server, or from local devices such as Hard disks, CompactFlash drives, USB keyrings...

 and the PC TSC

PC TSC

- Introduction :PC TSC is a free and open source tool that converts a PC with hard drive, CD-ROM, video, and network connection into a terminal server client , supporting RDP and VNC.It uses Tiny Core Linux as its base....

 project, as well as some thin client appliances.

See also

• freeRDP
  FreeRDP
  FreeRDP is a free, open source clientfor Microsoft's proprietary RDP protocol.It is released under the GNU General Public License and is available on...
  
   - An rdesktop fork
• Comparison of remote desktop software

External links

• rdesktop website
• FreeRDP - rdesktop fork
• KDE front-end for rdesktop
• GNOME front-end for rdesktop
• xrdp - RDP server for Unix, based on rdesktop
• CoRD - A native Cocoa interface for the OS X port of rdesktop.
• properJavaRDP - rdesktop based Free Java Remote Desktop Connection Client