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Rustdesk – Remote desktop software, an open source TeamViewer alternative

421 points by yarapavan 4y ago

Snuupy 4y ago
They're locking features (like encryption?!) behind a license. Who knows what other essential features they might put behind a paywall. Their licensing fees aren't even released yet. Seems sketchy to me. I'd stick to meshcentral.
john61 4y ago
I use RemoteSupportTool for years now and it works great. Simple VNC over SSL, with no configuration on the client side. No server necessary. https://github.com/OpenIndex/RemoteSupportTool https://github.com/OpenIndex/RemoteSupportTool
denysvitali 4y ago
In case you're wondering, yes it's written in Rust :D
- wiz21c 4y ago
  "you cannot borrow that session because it is already borrowed by another user" :-)
  - titaniczero 4y ago
    “explicit lifetime bound required“, you poor soul
- c-smile 4y ago
  As far as I can see it uses Sciter UI for clients on desktops. And that one is C++.
jeroenhd 4y ago
Sounds great! Even comes with a rendez-vous system so you don't need to mess with firewalls (like you need to with VNC and such). I can't read anything on the front page though, the website shows up light-grey-on-white. Is that just me? Did the CSS fail to load somehow? Edit: never mind, the CSS sets the text color to #999 and a font weight of 200 for many elements. Apparently that's intentional. Going by the font list, I'm guessing the theming was tested on macOS and made to look nice without testing if the fallback fonts were even readable in the slightest.
- tveyben 4y ago
  A few days ago there was a story here at HN about a chrome plugin that fixes exactly those problems by making the fonts show as black and thus restoring a useful contrast. I can’t remember the name (it was just two letters, like ‘SD’ or such) and I forgot to bookmark it as well… Update: Found the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31444913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31444913
- ushakov 4y ago
  it’s same on macOS though i think some frontend engineers/designers might have misconfigured screens otherwise i can’t understand why setting right contrast is so difficult
- pmontra 4y ago
  Yes, it's almost white on white. The text on the server installation page is OK.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
benbristow 4y ago
Looks neat. The cynical side of me wonders when the scammers are going to set-up their own servers for this though and start using it instead of AnyDe(x/sk)/TeamViewer. No way of being reported then other than the IP to the server host themselves.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  I'm sure they do once they realize they can, but on the other hand, there are lots of bad things you can do with any open source products. nmap can be used to evaluate your firewall or it can be the first step in taking down critical government infrastructure. I don't believe that reporting scammers to remote support companies has ever been effective in the fight against these people, especially with the local police departments near the scammers' offices taking their sweet time to respond to any outcry about them. The sad reality is that less than a week after scammers find out about this tool, the Windows binary will probably be flagged by every single AV engine out there.
valiafetisov 4y ago
I like how the screenshot on the main page shows "Not Secure" for the browser window with web.rustdesk.com. This one detail makes me sceptical of the whole product (:
- milosmns 4y ago
  They do clearly state that the Web component is in beta (realistically alpha or dev), so it's probably fine to be not secure during QA
  - muhehe 4y ago
    I disagree. It means that security is an afterthought which will be "added" later to the product to check the "secure" checkbox.
    - staticassertion 4y ago
      Not necessarily. You can design your system's security and then implement your features first. A good example would be "we know we need TLS, let's get a non TLS version up first and then add it before release". Pretty typical imo
      - muhehe 4y ago
        I'd say it pretty typical prequel to "we intended to implement TLS, but then we forgot/were busy/attacked by medusas/.../had different prioritises"
        staticassertion 4y ago
        Sure, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with incremental security.
        muhehe 4y ago
        I guess we won't agree on this. In my experience this is the sort of "good programmers don't do mistake X". Though technically possible, unreliable in reality.
user3939382 4y ago
My use case for this type of software is helping older, technically-illiterate friends and relatives. The biggest challenge for this group is getting them to: Find the website for the tool Find the download button Find the file in their downloads Run it so they can give me the connect number What the tool can do to help is make the website very distinct so I can be sure from a verbal description they’re on the right domain, have an in-your-face download button, and have 0 install or configure steps upon launch.
- jenscow 4y ago
  I've found using tinyurl (or hosting/redirecting the download page yourself) is generally best for that. I use AnyDesk - it was the first one I found which requires no installation (and when I got access, I added a link on the desktop and start menu). However, it requires extra clicks to access sensitive things (device manager at least).
  - user3939382 4y ago
    AnyDesk is also what I use at the moment. It's pretty good for this use. There are fake/scam AnyDesk sites with virus downloads so I have to be careful to check which site they arrived at. Tinyurl isn't a bad idea. The only real problem I face is macOS requires these screen recording/accessibility permissions for the connections to work on some versions and it's extremely tedious to walk someone through setting those verbally.
- dementik 4y ago
  I have been using TeamViewer for this specific case, helping out (usually older) people with their computer issues. I have struggled with this very same problem, and finally using some short url for downloads. Helps a little bit. But one funny story related to this: I was helping one gentleman and i told him on the phone that he should go to "www dot teamviewer dot com" . He had not used that before and his English skills were non-existent. He had trouble finding Download -button from the site and that time Teamviewer.com had young female model stock photo there. I asked him - to confirm that he is on the right website - like "Do you see there that brown haired cute girl?". He answered: "Yes, and few blondes.". I asked him to read address line for me and it was "teenviewer.com". After few corrections to the url we finally got Teamviewer installed.
proto_lambda 4y ago
I'd proceed with caution. Apparently it doesn't support Wayland, so when you run it under Wayland it offers you a "Fix it!" button that, when clicked, runs sed on some gdm system config files to revert it to X11 (nevermind that gdm is far from the only way to use Wayland): https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/blob/1.1.9/src/platform/linux.rs#L411-L422 https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/blob/1.1.9/src/platform.... If this is the kind of thing that's considered acceptable by the developer, I'd rather keep their products far away from my machines. A quick glance at the code also reveals an almost complete lack of comments and copious use of unexplained `unsafe`.
- mgrandl 4y ago
  What the actual fuck…
- FieryTransition 4y ago
  Thanks for the warning, that is brutal!
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  I don't think the application can work on Wayland because it can't inject commands. Screen sharing is a possibility, but that's it: injecting key strokes or mouse input into applications can only be done by even worse hacks. That said, the "let's disable Wayland to fix it" approach is very... pragmatic, to say the least. This tool was clearly written by someone with a "make it work for the general public" mindset. And, to be honest, I'm not 100% opposed to this approach, although there should definitely be a giant warning system configuration is changed. When a piece of software says "You are using Wayland and this software requires X11, please change your desktop session type" then you're not helping most people. A simple button to fix the problem can be a lot better than an error message with a link to a complicated step-by-step guide. As is often the case, this client seems to have been made for people running Ubuntu/Fedora, and a relatively recent version at that. The copious amount of unsafe seems to revolve around operating system APIs being called. Interacting with X11 requires tons of unsafe operations, you can't really work around that. The best you can do is make your own wrappers to hide the fact you're calling unsafe code behind the scenes, but I can't see too much unnecessary unsafe code in there to be honest.
lapser 4y ago
I tried this as an alternative to teamviewer not long ago to help my dad with something. He runs a little bit of an older macOS version because reasons (I'm a bit wary upgrading it because another newer macbook my mum owns basically said the device is unsupported when I upgraded to the latest version). Rustdesk refused to install because the macOS version was too old. Until Rustdesk runs on many OSes, especially older OS versions, it will be hard to use. Mind you, it's not entirely clear what OS versions are supported from the website, so I went through a lot of trouble to get my dad to try and install it, only to then be disappointed. I have hope though! It looks great so far.
rmbyrro 4y ago
Was about to come here and ask the perspective from anyone experienced with cyber security. Then read this: > "... with no concerns about security" Nevermind. Might be the cynic or skeptic inside me, but it tells me these people are either careless, naive or ill intentioned.
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  The Web beta being insecure http-only also doesn't inspire confidence.
  - hnarn 4y ago
    I’m not sure I feel great about a project written in rust using “rust” in its name like this, it seems pretty obvious to me that it’s looking for free publicity simply because it’s written in rust, nevermind how high quality the code or application is in the first place.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      this is HN, it's full ob publicity for projects that are just $old_existing_program written in $language_of_the_day
      - hnarn 4y ago
        yes, but ripgrep (which is great by the way) isn’t called “rustgrep”. it just looks suspicious.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Erlangen 4y ago
  The author is Chinese. I found his post in Chinese forum 2 years ago. https://www.v2ex.com/t/712086?p=1 https://www.v2ex.com/t/712086?p=1 "... with no concerns about security" seems to be a bad maschine translation. The Chinese version says "(you) don't have to worry about security".
2Gkashmiri 4y ago
Been using anydesk religiously for the last 2 years and the increasing ads starting with chrome banners and more recently the "pro" use, I started using rustdesk. This is really great. I dare say the performance is "better" than anydesk, nothing objective or I could measure. Maybe its me wishing it be as prevalent and more than anydesk/tw
mwcampbell 4y ago
Anyone know why the executable name of the Windows installer ends with "putes"? I get that it's "setup" backwards, but why obfuscate like that?
- dwattttt 4y ago
  There's a compatibility hack in Windows that causes binaries with "setup" in the name to request administrator privileges, unless they embed a manifest that specifies they don't need it (last part slightly speculative)
  - mwcampbell 4y ago
    So I wonder why they obfuscated the executable name rather than adding the required manifest properties. I get that the overall negativity of this thread led me to look at this with extra scrutiny, but wouldn't the unknown word "putes" in the executable name make anyone suspicious?
    - debugnik 4y ago
      Worse than unknown, it actually translates or sounds really close to "whores" in several languages. Really unfortunate workaround.
    - ComputerGuru 4y ago
      The manifest needs to be embedded with the MS build tools (which aren’t available for cross platform builds) or separately as myfile.exe.manifest (making it no longer a single-file download).
      - mwcampbell 4y ago
        On further investigation, the executable already has a manifest in it. I believe the missing bit of XML is this: <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"> <security> <requestedPrivileges> <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" /> </requestedPrivileges> </security> </trustInfo> No, I don't know where that's documented. I pulled it out of the manifest of an existing installer.
Hizonner 4y ago
> You have full control of your data, with no concerns about security. Hold me.
telesilla 4y ago
We've been using RealVNC's Instant Support (https://www.realvnc.help https://www.realvnc.help), it's been the easiest we've found yet that matches the level of complexity customers can handle. We'll check out Rustdesk, as the Web interface would make it even easier for the team to jump on for help when on the road.
judge2020 4y ago
Unless this has changed, RuskDesk seems to require a TURN/ICE server to connect at all- you can’t directly connect via IP. This would be fine if you could run your own, but you can’t: Open home page, "please set up your own server" Click link, second line "Note: You need buy license When using this software" Click link, "Currently we are not selling server licenses as we are working on a new version of the server. " Combine this with the default server being slow and it’s unusable.
- hda111 4y ago
  Isn’t it the point of software like this, to connect through firewalls? Never saw an option like this in TeamViewer or AnyDesk.
- smarx007 4y ago
  What's this then? https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server/releases https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server/releases
  - judge2020 4y ago
    The code and those binaries were uploaded 9 days ago so i'm glad to see it's available now.
0daystock 4y ago
I couldn't find a single inline comment nor docstring in the code. I'm no Rust expert, but I know enough about software development to draw some conclusion about the qualifications and proficiency of the developers from this fact.
mwcampbell 4y ago
I want to counter the prevailing negativity in this thread. I admire the pragmatism of this project. The developers are clearly willing to work hard to achieve what they value, such as producing a single self-contained executable on Windows. But they're also unafraid to take pragmatic shortcuts where they feel that it's OK to do so. I wonder if the fact that the original author comes from the largest non-English-speaking population in the world [1], a population large enough to have its own distinct software development culture, is relevant. I'm guessing that they don't routinely participate in our English-speaking software development communities. If that's so, then they're not exposed to our norms or the constant negativity of our online discourse. Perhaps that's liberating. Perhaps we need more independent cultures, doing their own thing with no regard for what we think. In any case, for me, software developed in China, such as this project and Zoom (particularly the Windows client), provides an interesting peek into what Jimmy Maher called a mirror world [2]. It may trigger our natural discomfort with foreignness, but some of the differences from the typical American commercial software culture, such as a continued willingness to develop bloat-free native Windows apps, are refreshing. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31457771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31457771 [2]: https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-part-1-calculators-and-cybernetics/ https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-par... Edit: If anyone thinks what I said is offensive, please let me know, either publicly or privately. I tried to approach a delicate topic without offending, but I'm not sure if I succeeded.
- smarx007 4y ago
  Poor translation maybe too? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456645, "with no concerns about security" sounds quite different from "don't have to worry about security".
- tikimcfee 4y ago
  If I may add a little to this: I am a native English speaker living in the USA. I constantly feel belittled, undermined, and shunned by the technically literate - especially the hyper technically literate - because of the exact negativity you’re talking about. I can only imagine the level of shock someone who hasn’t built up calluses to the mentality would feel. The negativity is most often this kind of discourse. How gizmo x wont possibly fly because of some rules and general ideas, and how this person’s other gizmo is really the bar to meet, and everything else is not worth their time. I cannot impart to you how terrible I felt for months thinking that I was such a bad engineer that I couldn’t stand up a simple web server on a droplet. I felt like “it’s just so easy and obvious” and I gave up multiple times. This may be crusty software by some people’s standards, but I challenge those same people to put down their high projects, spend 10 minutes writing an issue, or even a weekend with a PR, and dropping this whole schtick of “lol look at the bad developers doing bad things.” This comes off as damning and condemning, and it is by intent, but it’s also a cry for help. If you are technically literate enough to identify issues in something technical.. be the person that shares that understanding freely, instead of holding it like a bar of achievement.
metadat 4y ago
Any chance one of you kind rustaceans will fork this and implement a proper self-hosted encrypted server for this? And maybe some code comments? Sincerely, metadat
- metadat 4y ago
  I believe the market really would be very receptive to this with better documentation and reasonably secure options. I.e. encryption and self-hosting capable setver and FW hole-puncher.
mastax 4y ago
I hope this succeeds. Remote desktop sounds like an easy problem and there are many implementations, but most of them don't work well in practice. TeamViewer works very well, but the company is a bit scummy and the pricing is crazy. Windows Remote Desktop works well between Windows machines, and with Tailscale it's pretty convenient. I use PulseWay at work and their remote control is quite barebones and very slow, even in good network conditions. I remember trying all the open source VNC clients/servers I could find a while ago and was disappointed.
- eyegor 4y ago
  Performance wise, the best one I've tried is Splashtop which is also free for personal use on a lan. Business pricing is pretty cheap imo as well. I used it to remote into a machine ~3k miles away (different country) and didn't notice much cursor/kb latency at all. In the past I found I was able to play some games on a windows machine remotely across campus from a terrible netbook running arch at like ~30 fps. Every other tool I tried had too much latency or was too poor quality of a connection to make that viable. Edit. I may have been using the windows client through wine, I don't think they had an official Linux client at the time.
Oxodao 4y ago
Finally! I was looking for something like this for a long time. The closest is MeshCentral but it seems to expect the target computers to stay in the web panel, I needed something like this for quick remote assistance, not having to keep everyone's computer in a list. Looking forward to try this in the near future
Fnoord 4y ago
I use wayvnc for this purpose but its local traffic. I would use Wireguard for authentication secure communication.
bedros 4y ago
awesome from first try on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Mac, it even recognized that I have two screens and split them in the remote application 1-2 and can click on 1 or 2 to select what screen to show also, it has shrink feature to make bigger screen fit on the local screen
rmrf100 4y ago
This is cool!

421 points by yarapavan 4y ago

They're locking features (like encryption?!) behind a license. Who knows what other essential features they might put behind a paywall. Their licensing fees aren't even released yet. Seems sketchy to me. I'd stick to meshcentral.

john61 4y ago

I use RemoteSupportTool for years now and it works great. Simple VNC over SSL, with no configuration on the client side. No server necessary. https://github.com/OpenIndex/RemoteSupportTool https://github.com/OpenIndex/RemoteSupportTool

denysvitali 4y ago

In case you're wondering, yes it's written in Rust :D

wiz21c 4y ago
"you cannot borrow that session because it is already borrowed by another user" :-)
- titaniczero 4y ago
  “explicit lifetime bound required“, you poor soul
c-smile 4y ago
As far as I can see it uses Sciter UI for clients on desktops. And that one is C++.

jeroenhd 4y ago

Sounds great! Even comes with a rendez-vous system so you don't need to mess with firewalls (like you need to with VNC and such). I can't read anything on the front page though, the website shows up light-grey-on-white. Is that just me? Did the CSS fail to load somehow? Edit: never mind, the CSS sets the text color to #999 and a font weight of 200 for many elements. Apparently that's intentional. Going by the font list, I'm guessing the theming was tested on macOS and made to look nice without testing if the fallback fonts were even readable in the slightest.

tveyben 4y ago
A few days ago there was a story here at HN about a chrome plugin that fixes exactly those problems by making the fonts show as black and thus restoring a useful contrast. I can’t remember the name (it was just two letters, like ‘SD’ or such) and I forgot to bookmark it as well… Update: Found the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31444913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31444913
ushakov 4y ago
it’s same on macOS though i think some frontend engineers/designers might have misconfigured screens otherwise i can’t understand why setting right contrast is so difficult
pmontra 4y ago
Yes, it's almost white on white. The text on the server installation page is OK.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

benbristow 4y ago

Looks neat. The cynical side of me wonders when the scammers are going to set-up their own servers for this though and start using it instead of AnyDe(x/sk)/TeamViewer. No way of being reported then other than the IP to the server host themselves.

jeroenhd 4y ago
I'm sure they do once they realize they can, but on the other hand, there are lots of bad things you can do with any open source products. nmap can be used to evaluate your firewall or it can be the first step in taking down critical government infrastructure. I don't believe that reporting scammers to remote support companies has ever been effective in the fight against these people, especially with the local police departments near the scammers' offices taking their sweet time to respond to any outcry about them. The sad reality is that less than a week after scammers find out about this tool, the Windows binary will probably be flagged by every single AV engine out there.

valiafetisov 4y ago

I like how the screenshot on the main page shows "Not Secure" for the browser window with web.rustdesk.com. This one detail makes me sceptical of the whole product (:

milosmns 4y ago
They do clearly state that the Web component is in beta (realistically alpha or dev), so it's probably fine to be not secure during QA
- muhehe 4y ago
  I disagree. It means that security is an afterthought which will be "added" later to the product to check the "secure" checkbox.
  - staticassertion 4y ago
    Not necessarily. You can design your system's security and then implement your features first. A good example would be "we know we need TLS, let's get a non TLS version up first and then add it before release". Pretty typical imo
    - muhehe 4y ago
      I'd say it pretty typical prequel to "we intended to implement TLS, but then we forgot/were busy/attacked by medusas/.../had different prioritises"
      - staticassertion 4y ago
        Sure, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with incremental security.
        muhehe 4y ago
        I guess we won't agree on this. In my experience this is the sort of "good programmers don't do mistake X". Though technically possible, unreliable in reality.

user3939382 4y ago

My use case for this type of software is helping older, technically-illiterate friends and relatives. The biggest challenge for this group is getting them to: Find the website for the tool Find the download button Find the file in their downloads Run it so they can give me the connect number What the tool can do to help is make the website very distinct so I can be sure from a verbal description they’re on the right domain, have an in-your-face download button, and have 0 install or configure steps upon launch.

jenscow 4y ago
I've found using tinyurl (or hosting/redirecting the download page yourself) is generally best for that. I use AnyDesk - it was the first one I found which requires no installation (and when I got access, I added a link on the desktop and start menu). However, it requires extra clicks to access sensitive things (device manager at least).
- user3939382 4y ago
  AnyDesk is also what I use at the moment. It's pretty good for this use. There are fake/scam AnyDesk sites with virus downloads so I have to be careful to check which site they arrived at. Tinyurl isn't a bad idea. The only real problem I face is macOS requires these screen recording/accessibility permissions for the connections to work on some versions and it's extremely tedious to walk someone through setting those verbally.
dementik 4y ago
I have been using TeamViewer for this specific case, helping out (usually older) people with their computer issues. I have struggled with this very same problem, and finally using some short url for downloads. Helps a little bit. But one funny story related to this: I was helping one gentleman and i told him on the phone that he should go to "www dot teamviewer dot com" . He had not used that before and his English skills were non-existent. He had trouble finding Download -button from the site and that time Teamviewer.com had young female model stock photo there. I asked him - to confirm that he is on the right website - like "Do you see there that brown haired cute girl?". He answered: "Yes, and few blondes.". I asked him to read address line for me and it was "teenviewer.com". After few corrections to the url we finally got Teamviewer installed.

proto_lambda 4y ago

I'd proceed with caution. Apparently it doesn't support Wayland, so when you run it under Wayland it offers you a "Fix it!" button that, when clicked, runs sed on some gdm system config files to revert it to X11 (nevermind that gdm is far from the only way to use Wayland): https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/blob/1.1.9/src/platform/linux.rs#L411-L422 https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/blob/1.1.9/src/platform.... If this is the kind of thing that's considered acceptable by the developer, I'd rather keep their products far away from my machines. A quick glance at the code also reveals an almost complete lack of comments and copious use of unexplained `unsafe`.

mgrandl 4y ago
What the actual fuck…
FieryTransition 4y ago
Thanks for the warning, that is brutal!
jeroenhd 4y ago
I don't think the application can work on Wayland because it can't inject commands. Screen sharing is a possibility, but that's it: injecting key strokes or mouse input into applications can only be done by even worse hacks. That said, the "let's disable Wayland to fix it" approach is very... pragmatic, to say the least. This tool was clearly written by someone with a "make it work for the general public" mindset. And, to be honest, I'm not 100% opposed to this approach, although there should definitely be a giant warning system configuration is changed. When a piece of software says "You are using Wayland and this software requires X11, please change your desktop session type" then you're not helping most people. A simple button to fix the problem can be a lot better than an error message with a link to a complicated step-by-step guide. As is often the case, this client seems to have been made for people running Ubuntu/Fedora, and a relatively recent version at that. The copious amount of unsafe seems to revolve around operating system APIs being called. Interacting with X11 requires tons of unsafe operations, you can't really work around that. The best you can do is make your own wrappers to hide the fact you're calling unsafe code behind the scenes, but I can't see too much unnecessary unsafe code in there to be honest.

lapser 4y ago

I tried this as an alternative to teamviewer not long ago to help my dad with something. He runs a little bit of an older macOS version because reasons (I'm a bit wary upgrading it because another newer macbook my mum owns basically said the device is unsupported when I upgraded to the latest version). Rustdesk refused to install because the macOS version was too old. Until Rustdesk runs on many OSes, especially older OS versions, it will be hard to use. Mind you, it's not entirely clear what OS versions are supported from the website, so I went through a lot of trouble to get my dad to try and install it, only to then be disappointed. I have hope though! It looks great so far.

rmbyrro 4y ago

Was about to come here and ask the perspective from anyone experienced with cyber security. Then read this: > "... with no concerns about security" Nevermind. Might be the cynic or skeptic inside me, but it tells me these people are either careless, naive or ill intentioned.

ben-schaaf 4y ago
The Web beta being insecure http-only also doesn't inspire confidence.
- hnarn 4y ago
  I’m not sure I feel great about a project written in rust using “rust” in its name like this, it seems pretty obvious to me that it’s looking for free publicity simply because it’s written in rust, nevermind how high quality the code or application is in the first place.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    this is HN, it's full ob publicity for projects that are just $old_existing_program written in $language_of_the_day
    - hnarn 4y ago
      yes, but ripgrep (which is great by the way) isn’t called “rustgrep”. it just looks suspicious.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Erlangen 4y ago
The author is Chinese. I found his post in Chinese forum 2 years ago. https://www.v2ex.com/t/712086?p=1 https://www.v2ex.com/t/712086?p=1 "... with no concerns about security" seems to be a bad maschine translation. The Chinese version says "(you) don't have to worry about security".

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

Been using anydesk religiously for the last 2 years and the increasing ads starting with chrome banners and more recently the "pro" use, I started using rustdesk. This is really great. I dare say the performance is "better" than anydesk, nothing objective or I could measure. Maybe its me wishing it be as prevalent and more than anydesk/tw

mwcampbell 4y ago

Anyone know why the executable name of the Windows installer ends with "putes"? I get that it's "setup" backwards, but why obfuscate like that?

dwattttt 4y ago
There's a compatibility hack in Windows that causes binaries with "setup" in the name to request administrator privileges, unless they embed a manifest that specifies they don't need it (last part slightly speculative)
- mwcampbell 4y ago
  So I wonder why they obfuscated the executable name rather than adding the required manifest properties. I get that the overall negativity of this thread led me to look at this with extra scrutiny, but wouldn't the unknown word "putes" in the executable name make anyone suspicious?
  - debugnik 4y ago
    Worse than unknown, it actually translates or sounds really close to "whores" in several languages. Really unfortunate workaround.
  - ComputerGuru 4y ago
    The manifest needs to be embedded with the MS build tools (which aren’t available for cross platform builds) or separately as myfile.exe.manifest (making it no longer a single-file download).
    - mwcampbell 4y ago
      On further investigation, the executable already has a manifest in it. I believe the missing bit of XML is this: <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3"> <security> <requestedPrivileges> <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" /> </requestedPrivileges> </security> </trustInfo> No, I don't know where that's documented. I pulled it out of the manifest of an existing installer.

Hizonner 4y ago

> You have full control of your data, with no concerns about security. Hold me.

telesilla 4y ago

We've been using RealVNC's Instant Support (https://www.realvnc.help https://www.realvnc.help), it's been the easiest we've found yet that matches the level of complexity customers can handle. We'll check out Rustdesk, as the Web interface would make it even easier for the team to jump on for help when on the road.

judge2020 4y ago

Unless this has changed, RuskDesk seems to require a TURN/ICE server to connect at all- you can’t directly connect via IP. This would be fine if you could run your own, but you can’t: Open home page, "please set up your own server" Click link, second line "Note: You need buy license When using this software" Click link, "Currently we are not selling server licenses as we are working on a new version of the server. " Combine this with the default server being slow and it’s unusable.

hda111 4y ago
Isn’t it the point of software like this, to connect through firewalls? Never saw an option like this in TeamViewer or AnyDesk.
smarx007 4y ago
What's this then? https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server/releases https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server/releases
- judge2020 4y ago
  The code and those binaries were uploaded 9 days ago so i'm glad to see it's available now.

0daystock 4y ago

I couldn't find a single inline comment nor docstring in the code. I'm no Rust expert, but I know enough about software development to draw some conclusion about the qualifications and proficiency of the developers from this fact.

mwcampbell 4y ago

I want to counter the prevailing negativity in this thread. I admire the pragmatism of this project. The developers are clearly willing to work hard to achieve what they value, such as producing a single self-contained executable on Windows. But they're also unafraid to take pragmatic shortcuts where they feel that it's OK to do so. I wonder if the fact that the original author comes from the largest non-English-speaking population in the world [1], a population large enough to have its own distinct software development culture, is relevant. I'm guessing that they don't routinely participate in our English-speaking software development communities. If that's so, then they're not exposed to our norms or the constant negativity of our online discourse. Perhaps that's liberating. Perhaps we need more independent cultures, doing their own thing with no regard for what we think. In any case, for me, software developed in China, such as this project and Zoom (particularly the Windows client), provides an interesting peek into what Jimmy Maher called a mirror world [2]. It may trigger our natural discomfort with foreignness, but some of the differences from the typical American commercial software culture, such as a continued willingness to develop bloat-free native Windows apps, are refreshing. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31457771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31457771 [2]: https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-part-1-calculators-and-cybernetics/ https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-par... Edit: If anyone thinks what I said is offensive, please let me know, either publicly or privately. I tried to approach a delicate topic without offending, but I'm not sure if I succeeded.

smarx007 4y ago
Poor translation maybe too? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31456645, "with no concerns about security" sounds quite different from "don't have to worry about security".
tikimcfee 4y ago
If I may add a little to this: I am a native English speaker living in the USA. I constantly feel belittled, undermined, and shunned by the technically literate - especially the hyper technically literate - because of the exact negativity you’re talking about. I can only imagine the level of shock someone who hasn’t built up calluses to the mentality would feel. The negativity is most often this kind of discourse. How gizmo x wont possibly fly because of some rules and general ideas, and how this person’s other gizmo is really the bar to meet, and everything else is not worth their time. I cannot impart to you how terrible I felt for months thinking that I was such a bad engineer that I couldn’t stand up a simple web server on a droplet. I felt like “it’s just so easy and obvious” and I gave up multiple times. This may be crusty software by some people’s standards, but I challenge those same people to put down their high projects, spend 10 minutes writing an issue, or even a weekend with a PR, and dropping this whole schtick of “lol look at the bad developers doing bad things.” This comes off as damning and condemning, and it is by intent, but it’s also a cry for help. If you are technically literate enough to identify issues in something technical.. be the person that shares that understanding freely, instead of holding it like a bar of achievement.

metadat 4y ago

Any chance one of you kind rustaceans will fork this and implement a proper self-hosted encrypted server for this? And maybe some code comments? Sincerely, metadat

metadat 4y ago
I believe the market really would be very receptive to this with better documentation and reasonably secure options. I.e. encryption and self-hosting capable setver and FW hole-puncher.

mastax 4y ago

I hope this succeeds. Remote desktop sounds like an easy problem and there are many implementations, but most of them don't work well in practice. TeamViewer works very well, but the company is a bit scummy and the pricing is crazy. Windows Remote Desktop works well between Windows machines, and with Tailscale it's pretty convenient. I use PulseWay at work and their remote control is quite barebones and very slow, even in good network conditions. I remember trying all the open source VNC clients/servers I could find a while ago and was disappointed.

eyegor 4y ago
Performance wise, the best one I've tried is Splashtop which is also free for personal use on a lan. Business pricing is pretty cheap imo as well. I used it to remote into a machine ~3k miles away (different country) and didn't notice much cursor/kb latency at all. In the past I found I was able to play some games on a windows machine remotely across campus from a terrible netbook running arch at like ~30 fps. Every other tool I tried had too much latency or was too poor quality of a connection to make that viable. Edit. I may have been using the windows client through wine, I don't think they had an official Linux client at the time.

Oxodao 4y ago

Finally! I was looking for something like this for a long time. The closest is MeshCentral but it seems to expect the target computers to stay in the web panel, I needed something like this for quick remote assistance, not having to keep everyone's computer in a list. Looking forward to try this in the near future

Fnoord 4y ago

I use wayvnc for this purpose but its local traffic. I would use Wireguard for authentication secure communication.

bedros 4y ago

awesome from first try on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and Mac, it even recognized that I have two screens and split them in the remote application 1-2 and can click on 1 or 2 to select what screen to show also, it has shrink feature to make bigger screen fit on the local screen

rmrf100 4y ago

This is cool!