Client Configuration

Overview

There are a number of ways to configure RustDesk Clients to use your own self-hosted server, we will cover some below.

1. Custom client generator (Pro only)

You can have your own name, logo, icon, configuration, be signed and more.

Currently, Windows X64, Mac Arm64 / X64, Linux, Android Arm 64 are supported.

Video

2. Manual Config

In the main RustDesk Client home click on the Menu button [ ⋮ ] next to your ID then click on Network, you can now unlock the settings using elevated privileges and set your ID, Relay, API and Keys.

Enter the hbbs host or IP Address in the ID Server input box (local side + remote side). The other two addresses can be left blank, RustDesk will automatically deduce (if not specially set), and the Relay Server refers to hbbr (port 21117).

e.g.

hbbs.example.com

or

hbbs.example.com:21116

Set Key

In order to establish an encrypted connection to your self-hosted server, you need to enter its public key. The key is usualy generated on the first run of hbbs and can be found in the file id_ed25519.pub in your working directory / data folder.

As a Pro user you will additionally be able to retrieve the Key from the web console.

Set API Server

This is for Pro user only. When you can log in on web console, but fail to log in on RustDesk client, it probably you have not set API Server correctly.

If your API Server does not run on default 21114 port (you may not add this port to firewall if you come from open source version), please specify API Server explicitly. e.g. your API Server runs on default HTTPS port, please specify API Server with https://hbbs.example.com.

If you still can not confirm the value of API Server, please go to the welcome page of web console, the API Server is shown in above picture (The input box with API: label).

3. Setup Using Import or Export

  1. Use the steps above to configure RustDesk Client on a Device.
  2. Using the above machine go to Settings then Network and unlock.
  3. Click on Export Server Config.
  4. Paste the copied string into Notepad or similar.
  5. Go to new client, copy the above to clipboard.
  6. Go to Settings then Network in RustDesk Client, unlock and click Import Server Config.
  7. It will automatically paste the settings in.
  8. Click Apply.

4. Automatic Config

The easiest way to setup automatically is using deployment scripts found here.

You can fix the Password is required and use a reverse Base64 string in the format {"host":"HOSTADDRESS","key":"HOSTKEY","api":"http://HOSTADDRESS:21114"} to automatically configure the clients, this is available automatically with RustDesk Server Pro via the console.

You can also use the steps from above to export the string, remove any = at the start or end of the string. Restart RustDesk Client if settings don’t show.

5. Put config in rustdesk.exe file name (Windows only)

Change rustdesk.exe to rustdesk-host=<host-ip-or-name>,key=<public-key-string>.exe, e.g. rustdesk-host=192.168.1.137,key=xfdsfsd32=32.exe. You can see the config result in the About Window below.

As a Pro user you will be able to retrieve the whole encrypted string from the web console then download and rename the RustDesk Client exe, you can upload this somewhere easy for your customers to use.

You need to set both host and key, missing either one will not work.

Optionally add a , (comma) character after the key, before the .exe part as a delimiter, to avoid the key being mangled if Windows or the browser renames the file when downloading duplicated names, e.g. host=<host-ip-or-name>,key=<public-key-string>,.exe.

If there are invalid characters in the key which can not be used in a Windows file name, please remove the id_ed25519 file from your server and restart hbbs/hbbr. This will cause the id_ed25519.pub file to regenerate. You may need to repeat this process until you get valid characters.

Embrase config string with -- in the name

Example: rustdesk--{config-string}--.exe

Please do not use -licensed- together with --, e.g. rustdesk-licensed-{config-string}--.exe does not work in version 1.2.3. We will fix it in version 1.2.4.

We have noticed that in some cases, when double downloaded, something like copy (1) is added to the end of the file name, and this ruins the config.

By adding -- at the end right after our config string, even if something is added to the file name, it won’t corrupt the config string, and RustDesk will correctly retrieve it.

6, Import config from Pro via clipboard

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server-pro/discussions/372#discussioncomment-10473298

7. Hardcoding Custom Settings

8. Use command line --config

rustdesk.exe --config <config-string>

You can get the config string from web console (you can see it on above picture) or from RustDesk client “Settings → Network” (here is a discussion about this).

9. Advanced Settings