So I’ve been using Rustdesk with a self hosted server for business and personal use now for some time. However, it is definitely the sketchiest foss software I’ve used. It seems to be based in China but the developers keep lying and saying its in Singapore.
Here is a list if everything I’ve found:
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14kjvkg/community_consensus_on_rustdesk_with_all_the/
https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/1159
https://www.reddit.com/r/rustdesk/comments/y230hf/my_rustdesk_client_try_to_communication_with/
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/10ppntj/reminder_about_the_shadyness_of_rustdesk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/uurta8/_/
It seems that now the clients and OSS server are completely foss which is good. They also no longer have public servers in China according to them. In the client itself it also now has better defaults so you are less at risk of getting attacked.
It still is sketch but it now is slightly less sketch I guess? Either way its not ideal.
If you have a custom DNS, be sure to block all the relay domains they use and block the respective ports from external access. Even if you disable the settings to avoid relays, they don’t acknowledge them and continue to try and phone home somewhere. Just checked the latest version on my phone, which has no relay setting configured, before commenting on this and sure enough, still true. Just logged an entry to rs-ny.rustdesk.com on my DNS, which of course was blocked. Desktop app has an option to disable them if I recall, but it never worked for me.
That out of the way, it is a very good local network software for remote access. Way faster than the alternatives I’ve tried.
Honestly we need a fork. Thanks for the advise.
Was this on a self-hosted install?
I’m not seeing any calls to *.rustdesk.com when I’m starting, stopping, or using a self-hosted version on Windows.
Or is it calling from home via the docker container?😵
Noticed it with the android install (via fdroid) and I think I had the appimage on Linux (not at my machine to check, so going by my memory). I connected to a windows machine that had no internet connectivity so can’t speak to the windows installs working and ignoring relays or not, but Linux and android do phone the relay servers at least. I’ll see if I can pull some screenshots or details tomorrow when I get a moment! I’ll update the appimage too just in case (since I only validated the DNS call being made on my phone yesterday)
Either way, if I had to choose between it and TeamViewer for what I use it for, Rustdesk is still a clear winner lol.