rsm-guacd-rdp

Minimal build of Apache Guacamole guacd 1.6.0 with RDP support for platforms that have no official binary:

Platform	Architecture	Build machine	Toolchain
Windows	x86-64	x64	MSYS2 MINGW64 / GCC
Linux	x86-64	x64	GCC
Linux	ARM64	x64 (cross-compile)	GCC / aarch64-linux-gnu

The build produces a standalone guacd.exe (Windows) or guacd (Linux) plus a portable folder containing all required DLLs / shared libraries.

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What is guacd?

guacd is the Guacamole proxy daemon. It accepts connections from the Guacamole web application and forwards them to remote desktops via RDP, VNC, SSH, etc. This repo focuses on an RDP-only build (VNC, SSH, Telnet, Kubernetes disabled) to keep dependencies minimal.

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Windows Build (x86-64)

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 64-bit
• MSYS2 — download from https://www.msys2.org/ Install to the default path (C:\msys64).

Everything else (compiler, libraries, Python) is installed automatically by the build script.

Quick start

1. Clone or download this repository.
2. Double-click run-build.bat.

The script opens an MSYS2 MinGW64 shell and runs the full build pipeline automatically. On first run it downloads the guacamole-server source tarball (~1.2 MB) and installs MSYS2 packages — this takes a few minutes. Subsequent runs are faster because the tarball is cached.

What the build script does

run-build.bat
  └─ build.sh (inside MSYS2 MINGW64)
       1. Install MSYS2/MINGW64 packages (compiler, FreeRDP, Cairo, …)
       2. Download guacamole-server-1.6.0.tar.gz (once, cached)
       3. Extract source (always fresh to avoid double-patching)
       4. Copy compat/ headers into the source tree
       5. Copy src-overrides/ (Windows thread-based process model)
       6. Apply patch-source.py (source-level Windows compatibility patches)
       7. Run autoreconf + ./configure
       8. make -j$(nproc)
       9. Verify guacd.exe was produced

After a successful build, collect the portable DLL bundle:

run-collect-dlls.bat

This creates guacd-bundle\ containing guacd.exe and all required DLLs.

Running guacd on Windows

cd guacd-bundle
.\guacd.exe -f -b 127.0.0.1 -l 4822

Flag	Meaning
-f	Run in foreground (required — fork() is not available on Windows)
-b <addr>	Bind address
-l <port>	Listen port (default: 4822)

How the Windows port works

Windows lacks several POSIX APIs that guacd depends on. The port addresses them as follows:

POSIX feature	Windows solution
fork()	Replaced with pthread_t threads (src-overrides/proc-win32.c)
socketpair(AF_UNIX)	TCP loopback pair via WSADuplicateSocket (src-overrides/move-fd-win32.c)
syslog, fcntl, fnmatch, …	Stub headers in compat/
uuid_generate	CoCreateGuid from ole32.dll
WSAStartup	Auto-called via __attribute__((constructor)) in windows-posix.h
FreeRDP 3.x API	patch-source.py patches rdp.h, rdp.c, input-queue.c, keyboard.c

Note: Because fork() is replaced with threads, guacd must be run with -f (foreground mode). The -d (daemon/background) mode is not supported.

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Linux Build (x86-64 and ARM64)

Prerequisites

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install -y \
    build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
    libcairo2-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-turbo8-dev \
    libssl-dev libfreerdp2-dev uuid-dev

# Fedora / RHEL
sudo dnf install -y \
    gcc autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig \
    cairo-devel libpng-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel \
    openssl-devel freerdp-devel libuuid-devel

For ARM64 cross-compilation on an x86 host:

sudo apt-get install -y gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu

Build

# Download source
wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/guacamole/1.6.0/source/guacamole-server-1.6.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf guacamole-server-1.6.0.tar.gz
cd guacamole-server-1.6.0

# Native build (x86-64 or ARM64)
autoreconf -fi
./configure --prefix=/usr/local \
    --without-vnc --without-ssh --without-telnet \
    --without-kubernetes --without-pulse \
    --without-vorbis --without-webp \
    --disable-guacenc --disable-guaclog
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

# Cross-compile for ARM64 (from x86 host)
./configure --host=aarch64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr/local \
    --without-vnc --without-ssh --without-telnet \
    --without-kubernetes --without-pulse \
    --without-vorbis --without-webp \
    --disable-guacenc --disable-guaclog
make -j$(nproc)

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Repository structure

build.sh                     Main build script (MSYS2 MINGW64)
patch-source.py              Python patcher — applies Windows compatibility edits
collect-dlls.sh              Collects guacd.exe + all DLL dependencies into bundle/
run-build.bat                Windows launcher — x64 build (MSYS2 MINGW64)
run-collect-dlls.bat         Windows launcher — collect DLLs
run-in-mingw64.bat           Generic MSYS2 MINGW64 launcher for any script

compat/                  POSIX compatibility headers for Windows
  windows-posix.h          Central stub (fork, setsid, kill, socketpair, …)
  fcntl.h                  F_GETFL / F_SETFL / O_NONBLOCK via ioctlsocket
  pwd.h                    struct passwd, getpwnam_r, faccessat, …
  fnmatch.h                Filename pattern matching
  syslog.h                 syslog() stub
  libgen.h                 basename() / dirname()
  netdb.h                  getaddrinfo / gai_strerror (via winsock2)
  uuid/uuid.h              uuid_t + uuid_generate via CoCreateGuid
  sys/socket.h             AF_* / SOCK_* (via winsock2)
  sys/select.h             select / fd_set (via winsock2)
  sys/wait.h               waitpid stub
  sys/statvfs.h            statvfs via GetDiskFreeSpaceEx
  arpa/inet.h              inet_ntop / inet_pton (via winsock2)
  netinet/in.h             sockaddr_in / IPPROTO_* (via winsock2)
  netinet/tcp.h            TCP_NODELAY (via winsock2)

src-overrides/           Windows-specific source replacements
  proc-win32.c             Thread-based connection handler (replaces fork-based proc.c)
  proc-win32.h             Extends guac_proc with pthread_t thread field
  move-fd-win32.c          Socket hand-off via WSADuplicateSocket + _pipe

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Known limitations

• No daemon mode (-d flag): fork() is stubbed to fail. Always use -f.
• No drive redirection (rdpdr): fdopendir is implemented via GetFinalPathNameByHandle but not production-tested.
• Certificate verification: The Windows build accepts all TLS certificates. For production use, implement proper verification in src/protocols/rdp/rdp.c.
• FreeRDP 3.x only: The MSYS2 package repository ships FreeRDP 3.x. guacamole 1.6.0 targets FreeRDP 2.x; patch-source.py adapts the API differences. This applies to both x64 and ARM64 builds.

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License

The compatibility shims and build scripts in this repository are released under the MIT License.

guacamole-server itself is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 by the Apache Software Foundation.