macmacospcremote desktop
I have a Mac Mini I use occasionally. I use RealVNC to connect to it remotely, from my Windows computer. VNC works well, but it lacks a few useful features. The two main features I'm missing is the ability to match the Mac's resolution to that of my PC screen, and the ability to transfer files between both computers.
Is there a simple way to install an RDP server on the Mac (it can be a paid solution)? Or perhaps there is another solution?
Thank you.
There is no command line access for the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client. But the free and most excellent CoRD remote desktop client does handle rdp:// links which would let you call it from a launcher of your choice or even via open on the command line.
The CoRD documentation on github lays out how you can use URL encoded parameters to open full-configured RDP sessions.
rdp:// URL syntax
CoRD handles rdp:// URLs, which you can use from many places inside OS X. Unfortunately, there is no way to extend Finder's "Connect to Server" dialog, which supports launching VNC URLs, so we can't launch CoRD from there. If Apple changes this (or if anybody is aware of a way to extend it) we would love to hear about it.
Saved ServersIf you want to use
rdp://urls with existing saved servers, you can (as of 0.5.3)! Just use the label in place of a hostname:
open rdp://labelNew Servers
From a shell (using Terminal):
open rdp://hostnameAdditional parameters can be used to start a fully-configured session via the URL:
open rdp://[username[:password]@]hostname[:port][/domain][?parameters]The following parameters can be set for the session via a query string (as of 0.5.2):
screenDepth ### [8|16|24|32]screenWidth <width in pixels>screenHeight <height in pixels>consoleSession ### [true|false|yes|no]fullscreen ### [true|false|yes|no]windowDrags ### [true|false|yes|no]drawDesktop ### [true|false|yes|no]windowAnimation ### [true|false|yes|no]themes ### [true|false|yes|no]fontSmoothing ### [true|false|yes|no]forwardDisks ### [true|false|yes|no]forwardPrinters ### [true|false|yes|no]forwardAudio ### [0|1|2]
0 - Forward Audio to the Local Machine (Currently not used since CoRD doesn't present audio)1 - Leave Audio at the Remote Machine2 - Disable Audio at both MachinesExample
open rdp://jsmith:securePassword@hostname.bigco.com/BigCoDomain?screendepth###24\&consoleSession###true\&themes###false\&screenWidth###1280\&screenHeight###800Note:
When using ampersands (&) from the command line, they have to be escaped with a backslash (). Colons (:) can be used in place of ampersands for the same effect, without needing to be escaped.
Passwords with any special characters in them, @, :, &, etc need to be encoded according to the URL Encoding Format
Command Line Use
CoRD supports the following command line options: -host -port -u -d -p -a [8|16|24|32] set screen depth -width set screen resolution width -height set screen resolution height
Example
/Applications/CoRD.app/Contents/MacOS/CoRD -host example.com -port 3389 -u usernameCaveats
Launching CoRD from the command line this way causes a fresh instance of CoRD to be opened. One symptom of this is multiple Dock icons. This overrides or decreases the effectiveness of many of CoRD strong points, including unified sessions, etc. For that reason, we recommend using the open command, and rdp:// URLs to launch sessions.
The built-in VNC client with OS X works just great with most VNC servers I've tried on FreeBSD. I've mostly been using TigerVNC from ports (seems to be the fastest with OS X's VNC client), and the only issue I have is when I restart the VNC server while connected to it. The OS X VNC client will reconnect (great!) but it sizes the window oddly, and I can't resize it. Since scaling is turned on, this usually results in a small screen that cannot be read. Just restart the VNC client (or close the window and open a new connection, if you've got multiple connections open), and it's all OK again.
Since I have xterms open all the time on my mac, I generally do it like so:
open vnc://<host>:<port>
where <port> is the TCP port on which the server is running.
E.g. if it's :1, you'd use 5901 as <port>. You can even install the avahi port, and set up a service, so the VNC session shows up in Finder (although there's a Finder preference to change to make them show up since OS X 10.8, IIRC), just like a Mac that has "screen sharing" enabled (i.e. it's running a VNC server).
Best Answer
There is a built in VNC server on Mac OS: System Preferences -> Sharing -> Screen Sharing It won't transfer files from another platform than Mac.
On PC side I used TightVNC in the past.
TeamViewer could be one solution.