Building Bridges

Like I mentioned earlier, RustDesk not only gives you software for desktop systems, but also for mobile devices running Android and iOS via the respective providers' app stores. The apps can act as a client or server, allowing connection to remote PCs and access to the mobile devices from them (Figure 6). In testing, this worked smoothly in both directions, although operating a remote PC via the Android app does take some practice.

Figure 6: The Android app supports remote control of other computers as well as access to the device itself.

Alternatively, the project also offers a web client [6] for establishing a connection. The software, which is still beta, supports access to the corresponding devices in a web browser. The remote desktop appears after logging in, just like it does using the local program. To access the settings, click on the small arrow bottom right in the display. After doing so, a bar appears where you can adjust the screen display, among other things, just like with the desktop client. In testing, this feature worked surprisingly well, but you have to expect a certain latency, which makes working with it more difficult. The web client does not have a file transfer mode unlike the desktop variant.

Own Server

Besides the many client variants, the project also offers its own relay server. It includes both hbbs (RustDesk ID/Rendezvous Server) and hbbr (RustDesk Relay Server) components located in the same archive. However, the documentation of this software is limited to the bare essentials, which makes configuration difficult. Basically, you just need to launch the two components (Listing 1).

On the client side, enter the corresponding IP address in ID/Connection Server. The project recommends using PM2 to manage the server components. For step-by-step instructions on basic client and server configuration, see the RustDesk documentation [7].

Conclusions

In daily operation, there were no issues with RustDesk during the test phase. The software performs the basic functions just as well as AnyDesk or TeamViewer. Transferring the desktop required about the same transfer rates as the other candidates, and no crashes or software errors occurred. However, there is one point of criticism that the project needs to deal with: The documentation, especially for the server, leaves much to be desired in many places.