SSRD (Secure Socket Remote Desktop) is a lightweight remote desktop solution with end-to-end encrypted communication over sockets.
This project is still in development but already functional enough to be tested.

• Secure socket-based communication (RSA key exchange).
• Client/Server architecture.
• Easy setup with CMake.
• Minimal dependencies.

SSRD depends on the following libraries. The same versions of FFmpeg libraries must be installed on both the client and server, since shared libraries are used.

• FFmpeg
  • libavcodec
  • libavutil
  • libswscale
• PipeWire
• libportal (with GTK4 support)
• OpenSSL
• OpenGL
• GLFW3

Clone the repository and build:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

The compiled binaries will be available in the build/ folder:

• ssrd-server – run this on the target machine (the one being shared).
• ssrd-client – run this on the local machine (the one viewing).

On the target machine:

./ssrd-server

On the client machine, generate RSA keys:

mkdir -p ~/.ssrd/authorized_keys
openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -out ~/.ssrd/id_rsa
openssl rsa -in ~/.ssrd/id_rsa -pubout -out ~/.ssrd/id_rsa.pub

Copy the generated public.pem into the server machine under:

~/.ssrd/public.pem

Make sure the ~/.ssrd folder exists on the server.

From your client machine:

./ssrd-client -h <server-ip-address> -i /path/to/private.pem

If ~/.ssrd/private.pem exists on the client, you don't need to pass -i /path/to/private.pem

ssrd/
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── src/
│ ├── client/ # Client-side code
│ ├── server/ # Server-side code
│ └── common/ # Shared utilities
└── README.md

• This project is not production-ready yet.
• Error handling and additional security layers are still being improved.
• The rsa key exchange is primitive, need to improve it among other things.
• Contributions and feedback are welcome.

MIT License – free to use, modify, and distribute.