RDESKTOP(1)

NAME
rdesktop - terminal server client for Windows NT4 and Windows 2000

SYNOPSIS
rdesktop -n <hostname> [options] server

DESCRIPTION
rdesktop acts as a window terminal services client for Windows NT terminal servers and Windows 2000 terminal services either in administration or licenced mode. rdesktop implements the RDP version 4 protcol as used by Windows NT4 Terminalserver. Various mailinglist members wrote patches for rdesktop which implement RDP version 5. RDP 5 is used by Windows 2000 Terminal Services. At this time the patches are not merged in the main codebase but distributed seperately. See the links section for URLS.

OPTIONS

-u --user
    The username for authentication on the terminal server, together with -p this can be used for autologon. On win2k the username is prefilled on the username box.

-d --domain
    The domain to to which the user belongs. Use -u user@domain for win2k servers.

-s --shell
    The startup shell for the user. Use this to force the user to start a specific shell of program after startup.

-c --workingdir
    The current working directory for the user. Often used in combination with -s to setup a fixed environment for the user after logon.

-p --password
    The password to authenticate with, used in combination with -u for autologon. WARNING: the -p <password> option will be visible to all users when then use tools like ps. Use -p - to make rdesktop request a password at startup.

-n --clientname
    The name of the current machine rdesktop is running on. Usually the hostname (without the domain).

-k --keycode
    The keyboard layout for the rdesktop session. i.e. us, is or nl

-K --vmkeys
    By default the keybindings of the windowmanager will be ignored when the rdesktop window is in focus. Use this setting to keep the windowmanager keybindings.

-F --fullscreen
    Enable fullscreen mode. The -w and -h flag will be ignored when using -f, rdesktop will get the current height and width from the current desktop.

-D --bpp
    Rdesktop should detect the default screen depth, and try and run on that. The -D switch is only there so that the user can override the default bits-per-pixel setting.

-t --port
    This option is used to make rdesktop connect to another rdp port on the remote machine. The default is 3389 as used by W2K and NT4 Terminal Server.

-T --bs
    This option selects the backing-store method. The options are x,p and n.

--bs x
    Use the Xservers backing-store, but no internal pixmap. If the Xserver does not provide a backing-store none will be used at all, this acts as the --bs n switch. This method is the fastest since the Xserver can do optimizations in the hardware.

--bs n
    No backingstore. This is slow but saves some memory.

--bs p
    This is the default setting, use an internal pixmap.

-e --no-enc
    Do not use encryption, this is only for people who are not allowed to use encryption in Windows products. If you live in France you probably need this switch.

-l --no-license
    Do not request license. This flag is not used when connecting to Windows 2000 Terminal Services.

-v --privcolmap
    Use a private color map, this is useful when running X in 8bpp mode.

-4 --nt4tsc
    Enable NT4 compatibility mode, this might be needed to connect to NT4 Terminal Servers.

-N --new-kbcode
    If you're not using a pc keyboard this may fix some of your key problems. This option should be used together with the -k option.

-V --VNC
    use a VNC viewer.

--no-bitmapcache
    Force bitmap updates.

--no-bitmapcomp
    Disable bitmap compression.

--no-desktopcache
    Disable the use of the desktop cache.

--no-motionevents
    Disable the sending of motion events.

--no-systembeep
    Do not forward the system beep from the terminal session to the Xserver.

EXAMPLES

Connect to a Windows 2000 Server called asp from a box called tux.
    % rdesktop -n tux asp.mydomain.com

Connect to a Windows 2000 Server called asp and automagically start Word. Rdesktop will request a password before starting the session.
% rdesktop -n tux -u worduser -p - -s winword.exe asp.mydomain.com

Connect to a Windows NT4 Terminal server
% rdesktop -n tux -4 terminal.mydomain.com

% rdesktop -n tux -u aspuser@asp.mydomain.com -p - -P 90 asp.mydomain.com

RETURN VALUES
None are defined (yet)

LINKS
Main website of rdesktop
http://www.rdesktop.org

The unified patch can be found here
http://bibl4.oru.se/projects/rdesktop

The mailinglist
rdesktop@cifs.org

BUGS
Probably too many to list here. We suggest you visit the website at http://www.rdesktop.org and take a look at the mailinglist archives to find out about the latest news, bugs and fixes.

VERSION
This manual page documents version 1.0.0/patch 19-4-2

AUTHOR
rdesktop is written by Matt Chapman
<matthewc@cse.unsw.edu.au>

unified patch by Peter Bystrom
<peter.bystrom@ub.oru.se>

manual page by Hugo Trippaers
<spark@ision.nl>

THANKS
Thanks to all the mailinglist members for their contributions to rdesktop.