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RDPMan

A Windows "Remote Desktop Connection Manager" (RDCMan) rebuilt for Linux: manage many RDP servers in a tree and open them in tabs, powered by FreeRDP.

Screenshots

Description

RDPMan

A Remote Desktop Connection Manager for Linux, modelled on Microsoft Sysinternals Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan). It organises many RDP servers in a tree, connects to them in tabs, and shows live thumbnails of a whole group at once. Sessions are rendered by the FreeRDP X11 client (xfreerdp), embedded directly inside the RDPMan window.

More screenshots

Group thumbnail view	Properties with inherited settings
Prepare a Linux host for RDP	Add servers by pattern
Options	Running as an AppImage

Features

• Server tree with files, nested groups, servers and smart groups (rule based, dynamic membership).
• Inherited settings like RDCMan: every server/group inherits logon credentials, gateway, display, local resources, security and experience settings from its parent, down to the application Default Group Settings.
• Embedded sessions in tabs, plus undock into a separate window and full screen with an auto-hiding connection bar.
• Group thumbnail view with live previews, configurable thumbnail size, and optional interaction with the previews.
• Connect / Connect As / Reconnect / Disconnect, connect or disconnect a whole group, a Reconnect group that keeps retrying, and automatic reconnection with backoff.
• Send keys (Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+Tab, Windows key, …) into the focused session.
• Credential profiles (per file and global), passwords encrypted at rest; RDCMan's [server] / [display] domain tokens are supported.
• Virtual groups: Connected, Favorites, Recent, Reconnect, and ad-hoc Connect To.
• Import / export: read and write RDCMan .rdg files and Microsoft .rdp files.
• Quick connect bar and search in the tree.
• SSH tunnelling per server: reach a cloud VM's RDP port over SSH without exposing 3389.
• Prepare Linux host for RDP: installs xrdp + Xfce on a fresh Ubuntu/Debian VM over SSH (e.g. an AWS Lightsail / EC2 instance) with the usual fixes applied.
• Add servers by pattern: web[01-10].example.com, {dca,dcb}-sql[1-2], …

Requirements

• Linux with an X11 session (the app embeds the FreeRDP window using xfreerdp /parent-window, which needs X11; it also runs under XWayland).
• FreeRDP 3 X11 client. One of:
  • sudo apt install freerdp3-x11 (provides xfreerdp3)
  • flatpak install flathub com.freerdp.FreeRDP
• Python 3.10+ and the Qt xcb dependency:
  • sudo apt install libxcb-cursor0

Install

Debian / Ubuntu / Mint (.deb)

sudo apt install ./dist/rdpman_0.1.0_amd64.deb

This pulls in the FreeRDP client and the Qt runtime libraries automatically and adds RDPMan to your applications menu. Built for Ubuntu 24.04 / Linux Mint 22.x (Python 3.12).

Any Linux (.AppImage)

chmod +x dist/RDPMan-x86_64.AppImage
./dist/RDPMan-x86_64.AppImage

The AppImage bundles Python, PySide6 and the app; it still uses the host's FreeRDP client, so install one with sudo apt install freerdp3-x11 (or the Flatpak). If the window fails to open with an xcb error, install libxcb-cursor0.

From source

./run.sh          # run from the source tree (creates .venv on first run)
./install.sh      # or install into ~/.local with a menu entry

Building the packages yourself

APPIMAGETOOL=/path/to/appimagetool packaging/build-packages.sh 0.1.0
# artifacts land in dist/

Connecting to an AWS Lightsail (or any cloud) Ubuntu instance

Ubuntu server images have no RDP server. RDPMan can set one up for you:

1. Add the instance as a server (host = its public IP).
2. Right-click it -> Prepare Linux host for RDP (install xrdp over SSH). Enter the SSH user (ubuntu), your Lightsail .pem key, and a password for the RDP user. Leave listen on localhost only ticked so 3389 never has to be opened in the cloud firewall.
3. RDPMan installs xrdp + Xfce, then updates the server to connect through an SSH tunnel. Connect as usual.

If you prefer to open the port instead of tunnelling, allow TCP 3389 in the Lightsail Networking firewall (restricted to your IP) and untick the tunnel.

Passwords stored in .rdg files come from Windows DPAPI and cannot be decrypted on Linux; re-enter them after importing.

Security notes

• Passwords are encrypted with a random key. By default that key lives in ~/.config/rdpman/vault.json (mode 0600) and, when available, the OS keyring (like RDCMan's per-user DPAPI encryption). You can instead protect it with a master password (Tools -> Options -> Security), similar to RDCMan's certificate option.
• The RDP password is passed to xfreerdp over a pipe (/args-from:stdin), so it never appears in ps.
• Server certificates use trust-on-first-use; a changed certificate prompts before reconnecting.

Keyboard shortcuts

Development

python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python -m pytest         # run the tests
.venv/bin/python -m rdpman         # run the app

Architecture

• rdpman/model – tree nodes, settings blocks with inheritance, .rdpman persistence, name-pattern expansion.
• rdpman/core – FreeRDP command builder and exit-code classifier, the session state machine, X11 window embedding helpers (python-xlib), SSH tunnels, the remote xrdp setup, and the credential vault.
• rdpman/formats – .rdg and .rdp import/export.
• rdpman/ui – the Qt (PySide6) interface: main window, server tree, client area with native session hosts and the thumbnail grid, property/option dialogs.

Licence

MIT, © 2026 Claude (Anthropic). See LICENSE.

Downloads

• rdpman_0.1.0_amd64.deb — Linux, 37 MB
• RDPMan-x86_64.AppImage — Linux, 55.4 MB
• rdp.tar.gz — Source, 964.4 KB

Original prompt(s)

Prompt 1

- I want you to develop an RDP (remote desktop protocol) Client like windows Remote Desktop Connection Manager 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/rdcman

- I can also connect t my aws Vps instance via this app: "image.png"

- Research deeply before implementing any code

- It should be desktop application of course

- Do your best, good luck.

Tags: connection-manager, freerdp, rdcman, rdp, remote-access, remote-desktop, remote-desktop-manager, sysadmin, xrdp

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