selfhosted-apps-docker/rustdesk/readme.md

Rustdesk in docker

guide-by-example

Purpose & Overview

Remote desktop access.

• Official site
• Github
• DockerHub for S6

Rustdesk is a new opensource replacement for TeamViewer or Anydesk.
The major aspects are that it does NAT punching, and lets you host all the infrastructure for it to function.
Written in rust(gasp), with Dart and Flutter framework for client side.

The idea is:

• run a rustdesk server reachable online
• install clients on machines you want to connect from / to
• the clients application keeps a regular heartbeat communication with the server, this punches hole in the NAT and so allows connection initialized from the outside without doing port forwarding

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Files and directory structure

/home/
└── ~/
    └── docker/
        └── rustdesk/
            ├── 🗁 rustdesk_data/
            ├── 🗋 .env
            └── 🗋 docker-compose.yml

• rustdesk_data/ - persistent data, contains sqlite database and the keys
• .env - a file containing environment variables for docker compose
• docker-compose.yml - a docker compose file, telling docker how to run the containers

You only need to provide the two files.
The directory is created by docker compose on the first run.

docker-compose

Using an edited version of S6-overlay based compose.
It's a simpler, single container approach. The complexity of hbbs/hbbr hidden. It also has health check implemented.

There is no network section since no working http traffic yet. So just mapped ports on to docker host do their thing.

docker-compose.yml

services:
  rustdesk:
    image: rustdesk/rustdesk-server-s6:1.1.7-1
    container_name: rustdesk
    hostname: rustdesk
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file: .env
    ports:
      - "21116:21116"
      - "21115:21115"
      - "21116:21116/udp"
      - "21117:21117"
      - "21118:21118"
      - "21119:21119"
    volumes:
      - ./rustdesk_data:/data

.env

# GENERAL
TZ=Europe/Bratislava

# RUSTDESK
RELAY=rust.example.com:21117
ENCRYPTED_ONLY=1
# KEY_PRIV=<put here content of ./rustdesk_data/id_ed25519>
# KEY_PUB=<put here content of ./rustdesk_data/id_ed25519.pub>

In the .env file encryption only is enabled, so that only clients that have correct public key will be allowed access to the rustdesk server.
The keys are generated on the first run of the compose and can be found in rustdesk_data directory. Once generated they should be added to the .env file for easier migration. The public key will need to be distributed with the clients apps install.

Port forwarding

as can be seen in the compose

• 21115 - 21119 TCP need to be forwarded to docker host
  
• 21116 is TCP and UDP

21115 is used for the NAT type test, 21116/UDP is used for the ID registration and heartbeat service, 21116/TCP is used for TCP hole punching and connection service, 21117 is used for the Relay services, and 21118 and 21119 are used to support web clients.

source

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The installation on clients

• download and install the client apps from the official site
• three dots near ID > ID/Relay Server
  • ID Server: rust.example.com
  • Key: <content of id_ed25519.pub>
• the green dot at the bottom should be green saying "ready"
• done

On windows one can deploy client with pre-set settings by renaming the installation file to: rustdesk-host=<host-ip-or-name>,key=<public-key-string>.exe

example: rustdesk-host=rust.example.com,key=3AVva64bn1ea2vsDuOuQH3i8+2M=.exe

If by chance the public key contains symbols not usable in windows filenames, down the container, delete the files id_ed25519 and id_ed25519.pub, up the container and try with the new keys.

Extra info

• You really really really want to be using domain and not your public IP when instaling clients and setting ID server. That domain can be changed to different IP any time you want. IP not.
• You wont get much response on github if questions is around selfhosting. #763, maybe trying their discord.
• tcpdump -n udp port 21116 to see heartbeat udp traffic, seems machines report-in every ~13 seconds.
• on windows machine a service named rustdesk is enabled. Disable it if want machine accessible only on demand, when someone first runs rustdesk.
  In powershell - Set-Service rustdesk -StartupType Disabled

Trouble shooting

If just one machine is having issues.

uninstall, plus delete:

• C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Roaming\RustDesk
• %AppData%\RustDesk

Restart. Reinstall.
Do not use the installer you used berfore, download from the site latest.

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Error - Failed to connect to relay server

• I had wrongly set env variable RELAY
• generally issue might be with port 21117 if green dot is green

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Investigate port forwarding

Install netcat and tcpdump on the docker host.

• docker compose down rustdesk container so that ports are free to use
• start small netcat server listening on whichever port we test
  sudo nc -u -vv -l -p 21116
• on a machine somewhere else in the world, not on the same network, try nc -u <public-ip> 21116

If you start writing something, it should appear on the other machine, confirming that port forwarding works.
The -u flag for netcat command is for udp port testing, without it its for tcp.

Also useful command can be tcpdump -n udp port 21116
When port forwarding works, one should see heartbeat chatter, as machines with installed rustdesk are announcing themselves every ~13 seconds.

Manual image update:

• docker-compose pull
  
• docker-compose up -d
  
• docker image prune

Backup and restore

Backup

Using borg that makes daily snapshot of the entire directory.

Restore

• down the bookstack containers docker-compose down
  
• delete the entire bookstack directory
  
• from the backup copy back the bookstack directory
  
• start the containers docker-compose up -d