Make FreeRDP prompt user for username and password?

Question

At the moment, I'm using the following command to start an FreeRDP session:

$ sudo xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com \
    /u:oshiro /p:oshiro_password /g:rds.company.com

Works fine. However, I don't want the password to be in the command line like that. So I tried it without the password:

$ sudo xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com /u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com

And I got a connection failure message instead of some sort of dialog box or prompt asking me to enter in a password.

Is it possible to get this to prompt the user for a password?

---

UPDATE: Omitting the /p switch

Without the /p switch, I get the following:

oshiro@ubuntu:~$ xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com -u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com
connected to rds.company.com:443
connected to rds.company.com:443
Could not open SAM file!
Could not open SAM file!
Could not open SAM file!
Could not open SAM file!
rts_connect error! Status Code: 401
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Content-Type: text/plain
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate
WWW-Authenticate: NTLM
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="rds.company.com"
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 10:40:30 GMT +12
Content-Length: 13

rts_connect error!
rpc_connect failed!
Error: protocol security negotiation or connection failure

Solution 1

The trick is putting the password switch at the end of your command line so that you can leave it blank. This will trigger xfreerdp to prompt your for the password instead of having to provide it via the command line.

Example

new cli interface (v1.1+)

$ xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com /u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com /p

old cli interface (v1.0.2)

$ xfreerdp -u oshiro -d company.com farm.company.com -t 3389 -p

NOTE: The new CLI is available in the pre-releases, v1.1+, so pay special attention to which version you're using. Running the command xfreerdp --version will show you which. Also take a look at the releases topic in the wiki for more information on each.

Sample connection

Here's an example of me connecting to a RDP server.

$ xfreerdp --ignore-certificate -u smingolelli -d mydom -t 5000 rdp.mydom.com -p
connected to rdp.mydom.com:5000
Password: 

Prompting the user

This issue in the FreeRDP issue tracker titled: Prompt for Credentials - NLA #1512, had this snippet of how you could use zenity to prompt the user for a username and password using GUI dialogs and then run xfreerdp with the provided info afterwards.

$ xfreerdp /v:yourRDSfarmFQDN \
/u:$(zenity \
--entry \
--title="Domain Username" \
--text="Enter your Username") \
/p:$(zenity \
--entry \
--title="Domain Password" \
--text="Enter your _password:" \
--hide-text) \
/d:yourdomainname \
/f \
/cert-ignore
+clipboard

The above when executed would pop these dialogs up to the user. These will come up one at a time in turn.

                            

References

• Commnad Line Interfaces - FreeRDP Wiki

Solution 2

I'd like to expand on slm's solution. I wanted a single window to enter all information in and allow me to specify a RemoteApp all in one go, so I built on what he suggested with zenity and created this.

XFreeRDP Prompt

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# XFreeRDP RemoteApp W/ Prompt Script
# Version 0.3
# Description:
# XFreeRDP Remote App Script utilizing Zentity to populate variables
# Written by Jarrett Higgins 12-2015

OUTPUT=$(zenity --forms --title="Connection Information" \
    --text="Enter information about your Remote Connection" \
    --separator="," \
    --add-entry="Server" \
    --add-entry="Port (Default: 3389)" \
    --add-entry="Domain (Optional)" \
    --add-entry="Username" \
    --add-password="Password" \
    --add-entry="Remote App Name (Optional)")
OUTPUT_RESULTS=$?
if ((OUTPUT_RESULTS != 0)); then
    echo "something went wrong"
    exit 1
fi
Blank=""
Server=$(awk -F, '{print $1}' <<<$OUTPUT)
Port=$(awk -F, '{print $2}' <<<$OUTPUT)
if ["$Port" = "$Blank"]
then
    Port="3389"
else
    Port="$Port"
fi
Domain=$(awk -F, '{print $3}' <<<$OUTPUT)
Username=$(awk -F, '{print $4}' <<<$OUTPUT)
Password=$(awk -F, '{print $5}' <<<$OUTPUT)
App=$(awk -F, '{print $6}' <<<$OUTPUT)
if ["$App" = "$Blank"]
then
    App="$App"
    Title="$Server"
else
    AppName="$App"
    Title="$AppName on $Server"
    App="/app:||$App"
fi
#zenity --info --title="Information Return" --text="$Server $Port $Domain $Username $Password $App"
xfreerdp /t:"$Title" /v:$Server:$Port /d:$Domain /u:$Username /p:$Password $App /cert-ignore /workarea +clipboard
Password=""

Features:

• Defaults to port 3389 if not populated
• Defaults to no Remote App if not populated

Planned:

• Security Certificate Warning
• RDWeb Query to provide Resource List

I use this on my #!++ laptop with great success for connecting to my company and VM Remote Apps and client Servers. I'm not experienced with scripting, so if anyone has any suggestions or feedback, I would love to hear them.

Solution 3

If you specify tls security, the remote computer will prompt for password:

Xfreerdp --sec tls

The new parameter format:

  /sec:tls

Solution 4

I also like yad, using the following shell script.

#!/bin/sh
frmdata=$(yad --title "Connect to remote computer" --form --field="Remote computer" --field="Username" --field="Password:H" --field="Domain" --field="Gateway")
frmcomputer=$(echo $frmdata | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $1 }')
frmusername=$(echo $frmdata | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $2 }')
frmpassword=$(echo $frmdata | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $3 }')
frmdomain=$(echo $frmdata | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $4 }')
frmgateway=$(echo $frmdata | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|" } { print $5 }')
xfreerdp /v:$frmcomputer /f /d:$frmdomain /u:$frmusername /g:$frmgateway /p:$frmpassword /cert-ignore

It provides a good interface, and hides the password.

Solution 5

You need to supply an empty parameter (without password value). Try this:

sudo xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com /u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com /p

If that does not work, then you could accomplish this with simple bash script.

Save this as rdp.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# Read Password
echo -n Password: 
read -s password
echo
# Run Command
sudo xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com /u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com /p:$password

Then make file executable:

chmod +x rdp.sh

Launch it:

./rdp.sh

This has been asked and discussed more thoroughly on xfreerdp's github issue: https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/issues/1358

The bash script idea is taken from: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3980668/how-to-get-a-password-from-a-shell-script-without-echoing

View more solutions

Comments

[oshirowanen]

Thanks for this. However, when I try xfreerdp /v:farm.company.com /d:company.com /u:oshiro /g:rds.company.com /p, it just gives me the documentation and all the commands I could use. Then as soon as I put the password after the p it starts working.

[slm]

@oshirowanen - if you omit the /p switch all together?

[oshirowanen]

The error was too long to post as a comment, so I have updated the original question with the error message.

[slm]

@oshirowanen - that looks like it might be a bug: github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/issues/1584. Shows the same output as yours. I would open an issue with FreeRDP, if you're not sure how to do this I can assist further LMK.

[user829755]

instead of zenity --entry --text="Enter your _password:" --hide-text you can simply say zenity --password

[slm]

@user829755 - the use of --password has been problematic, not working on specific versions of zenity, hence why I showed this method here.

[reinierpost]

This exposes the password to users doing ps -ef.

[sjngm]

This answer still works in 2020 and doesn't need an additional tool/command. This should probably be the accepted answer.

[Benjamin Peter]

For the zenith version: I think it is worth noting that the password in the command line is hidden after start (by xfreerdp I suppose) and is not visible after that. But there should be a short amount of time where it could be observed by other users of the machine.

[Admin]

Yes, this is an invitation to the login screen. It helped me, thank you!