Power Remote Desktop is a fully functional Remote Desktop Application entirely coded in PowerShell.

It doesn't rely on any existing Remote Desktop Application or Protocol to function. A serious advantage of this application is its nature (PowerShell) and its ease of use and installation.

This project demonstrate why PowerShell contains the word Power. It is unfortunately often an underestimated programming language that is not only resumed to running commands or being a more fancy replacement to the old Windows command-line interpreter (cmd).

Tested on:

• Windows 10 - PowerShell Version: 5.1.19041.1320
• Windows 11 - PowerShell Version: 5.1.22000.282

Current version: 2.0 Stable

Highlighted Features

• Remote Desktop Streaming with support of HDPI and Scaling.
• Remote Control: Mouse (Moves, Clicks, Wheel) and Key Strokes (Keyboard)
• Secure: Network traffic is encrypted using TLSv1.2 or 1.3. Access to server is granted via a challenge-based authentication mechanism (using user defined complex password).
• Network traffic encryption is using whether a default X509 Certificate (Requires Administrator) or your custom X509 Certificate.
• Server certificate fingerprint validation supported and optionally persistent between sessions.
• Clipboard text synchronization between Viewer and Server.
• Mouse cursor icon state is synchronized between Viewer (Virtual Desktop) and Server.
• Multi-Screen (Monitor) support. If remote computer have more than one desktop screen, you can choose which desktop screen to capture.
• View Only mode for demonstration. You can disable remote control abilities and just show your screen to remote peer.
• Session concurrency. Multiple viewers can connect to a single server at the same time.

Setup everything in less than a minute (Fast Setup)

Install-Module -Name PowerRemoteDesktop_Server

Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer -CertificateFile "<certificate_location>"

If you are even more lazy and want to avoid using your own certificate, remove CertificateFile option but you will need to run PowerShell as Administrator.

Install-Module -Name PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer

Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer -ServerAddress "<ip_address>" -Password "<the_one_displayed_on_server>"

Thats it 😉

Detailed Installation and Instructions

You will find multiple ways to use this PowerShell Applications. Recommended method would be to install both Server and Viewer using the PowerShell Gallery but you can also do it manually as an installed module or imported script.

Install as a PowerShell Module from PowerShell Gallery (Recommended)

You can install Power Remote Desktop from PowerShell Gallery. See PowerShell Gallery as the 'equivalent' of Aptitude for Debian or Brew for MacOS.

Run the following commands:

Install-Module -Name PowerRemoteDesktop_Server

Install-Module -Name PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer

AllowPrerelease is mandatory when current version is marked as a Prerelease

Your command prompt will show the following warning:

Untrusted repository
You are installing the modules from an untrusted repository. If you trust this repository, change its
InstallationPolicy value by running the Set-PSRepository cmdlet. Are you sure you want to install the modules from
'PSGallery'?

Answer Y to proceed installation.

Both modules should now be available, you can verify using the command:

Get-Module -ListAvailable

Example Output:

PS C:\Users\Phrozen\Desktop> Get-Module -ListAvailable


    Directory: C:\Users\Phrozen\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules


ModuleType Version    Name                                ExportedCommands
---------- -------    ----                                ----------------
Manifest   1.0.0      PowerRemoteDesktop_Server           Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer
Manifest   1.0.0      PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer           Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer

<..snip..>

If you don't see them, run the following commands and check back.

Import-Module PowerRemoteDesktop_Server

Import-Module PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer

Install as a PowerShell Module (Manually / Unmanaged)

To be available, the module must first be present in a registered module path.

You can list module paths with following command:

Write-Output $env:PSModulePath

Example Output:

C:\Users\Phrozen\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules

Clone PowerRemoteDesktop repository or download a Github release package.

git clone https://github.com/DarkCoderSc/PowerRemoteDesktop.git

Copy both PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer and PowerRemoteDesktop_Server folders to desired module path

Example:

C:\Users\<USER>\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Both modules should now be available, you can verify using the command:

Get-Module -ListAvailable

Example Output:

PS C:\Users\Phrozen\Desktop> Get-Module -ListAvailable


    Directory: C:\Users\Phrozen\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules


ModuleType Version    Name                                ExportedCommands
---------- -------    ----                                ----------------
Manifest   1.0.0      PowerRemoteDesktop_Server           Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer
Manifest   1.0.0      PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer           Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer

<..snip..>

If you don't see them, run the following commands and check back.

Import-Module PowerRemoteDesktop_Server

Import-Module PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer

Notice: Manifest files are optional (*.psd1) and can be removed.

As a PowerShell Script

It is not mandatory to install this application as a PowerShell module (Even if file extension is *.psm1)

You can also load it as a PowerShell Script. Multiple methods exists including:

Invoking Commands Using:

IEX (Get-Content .\PowerRemoteDesktop_[Server/Viewer].psm1 -Raw)

Loading script from a remote location:

IEX (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://127.0.0.1/PowerRemoteDesktop_[Server/Viewer].psm1')

etc...

Usage

Client

PowerRemoteDesktop_Viewer.psm1 needs to be imported / or installed on local machine.

Available Module Functions

Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer
Get-TrustedServers
Remove-TrustedServer
Clear-TrustedServers 

Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer

Create a new remote desktop session with a Power Remote Desktop Server.

⚙️ Supported Options:

Clipboard Mode Enum Properties

⚠️ Important Notices

Prefer using SecurePassword over plain-text password even if a plain-text password is getting converted to SecureString anyway.

Example

Open a new remote desktop session to 127.0.0.1:2801 with password [email protected]

Invoke-RemoteDesktopViewer -ServerAddress "127.0.0.1" -ServerPort 2801 -SecurePassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "[email protected]" -AsPlainText -Force)

Enumerate Trusted Servers

When a fingerprint is met for the first time, viewer will ask you if you want to trust this new remote server fingerprint.

When you choose the [A] Always option, this fingerprint will be saved to local user registry. If you change your mind, you can revoke trsuted fingerprint at any time using dedicated functions.

Example output:

PS C:\Users\Phrozen\Desktop\Projects\PowerRemoteDesktop> Get-TrustedServers

Detail                           Fingerprint
------                           -----------
@{FirstSeen=18/01/2022 19:40:24} D9F4637463445D6BB9F3EFBF08E06BE4C27035AF
@{FirstSeen=20/01/2022 15:52:33} 3FCBBFB37CF6A9C225F7F582F14AC4A4181BED53
@{FirstSeen=20/01/2022 16:32:14} EA88AADA402864D1864542F7F2A3C49E56F473B0
@{FirstSeen=21/01/2022 12:24:18} 3441CE337A59FC827466FC954F2530C76A3F8FE4

Permanently Delete a Trusted Server

Remove-TrustedServer -Fingerprint "<target_ingerprint>"

Permanently Delete all Trusted Servers (Purge)

Server

PowerRemoteDesktop_Server.psm1 needs to be imported / or installed on local machine.

Available Module Functions

Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer

⚙️ Supported Options:

Server Address Examples

Clipboard Mode Enum Properties

⚠️ Important Notices

1. Prefer using SecurePassword over plain-text password even if a plain-text password is getting converted to SecureString anyway.
2. Not specifying a custom certificate using CertificateFile or EncodedCertificate result in generating a default self-signed certificate (if not already generated) that will get installed on local machine thus requiring administrator privilege. If you want to run the server as a non-privileged account, specify your own certificate location.
3. If you don't specify a SecurePassword or Password, a random complex password will be generated and displayed on terminal (this password is temporary).

Examples

Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer -ListenAddress "0.0.0.0" -ListenPort 2801 -SecurePassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "[email protected]" -AsPlainText -Force)

Invoke-RemoteDesktopServer -ListenAddress "0.0.0.0" -ListenPort 2801 -SecurePassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "[email protected]" -AsPlainText -Force) -CertificateFile "c:\certs\phrozen.p12"

Generate and pass your own X509 Certificate

⚠️ Remember that not using your own X509 certificate will result in requiring administrator privilege to create a new server.

Fortunately, you can easily create your own X509 certificate for example with the help of OpenSSL command line tool.

Generate your Certificate

openssl req -x509 -sha512 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout phrozen.key -out phrozen.crt

Then export the new certificate (must include private key).

openssl pkcs12 -export -out phrozen.p12 -inkey phrozen.key -in phrozen.crt

Integrate to server as a file

Use CertificateFile. Example: c:\tlscert\phrozen.crt

Integrate to server as a base64 representation

Encode an existing certificate using PowerShell

[convert]::ToBase64String((Get-Content -path "c:\tlscert\phrozen.crt" -Encoding byte))

or on Linux / Mac systems

base64 -i /tmp/phrozen.p12

You can then pass the output base64 certificate file to parameter EncodedCertificate (One line)

Changelog

11 January 2022 (1.0.1 Beta 2)

• Desktop images are now transported in raw bytes instead of base64 string thus slightly improving performances.
• Protocol has drastically changed. It is smoother to read and less prone to errors.
• TLS v1.3 option added (Might not be supported by some systems).
• Several code optimization, refactoring and fixes.
• Password complexity check implemented to avoid lazy passwords.
• Possibility to disable verbose.
• Server & Viewer version synchronization. Same version must be used between the two.

12 January 2022 (1.0.2 Beta 3)

• HDPI is completely supported.

12 January 2022 (1.0.3 Beta 4)

• Possibility to change desktop image quality.
• Possibility to choose which screen to capture if multiple screens (Monitors) are present on remote machine.

Multi Screen Selection

14 January 2022 (1.0.4 Beta 5)

• Password is stored as SecureString on Viewer. I don't see the point of implementing SecureString sever-side, if you do see the point, please change my mind.
• Server Fingerprint Validation.
• Possibility to trust a server for current PowerShell Instance or persistantly using a local storage.
• Possibility to manage trusted servers (List, Remove, Remove All)

Fingerprint Validation

18 January 2022 (1.0.5 Beta 6)

• Multiple code improvements to support incoming / outgoing events.
• Global cursor state synchronization implemented (Now virtual desktop mouse cursor is the same as remote server).
• Password Generator algorithm fixed.
• Virtual keyboard ] and ) correctly sent and interpreted.
• Clipboard synchronization Viewer <-> Server added.
• Server support a new option to only show desktop (Mouse moves, clicks, wheel and keyboard control is disabled in this mode).

21 January 2022 (1.0.6)

• TransportMode option removed.
• Desktop streaming performance / speed increased.

28 January 2022 (2.0.0)

• Protocol was completely revisited, protocol is now more stable and modular.
• Session concurrency is now supported, multiple viewers can connect at the same time to a server.
• Possibility to stop the server using CTRL+C
• Image quality is now requested by viewer.
• Desktop resize is now made server-side.
• Desktop resize can now be forced and requested by viewer.
• Center virtual desktop glitch fixed.
• Handshake calls (auth + session / worker negociation) will now timeout to avoid possible dead locks.
• Virtual Desktop Form can now be set always on top of other forms.
• Server finally use secure string to handle password-authentication.

List of ideas and TODO

• 🟢 Support Password Protected external Certificates.
• 🟢 Mutual Authentication for SSL/TLS (Client Certificate).
• 🟠 Listen for local/remote screen resolution update event.
• 🔴 Motion Update for Desktop Streaming (Only send and update changing parts of desktop).

🟢 = Easy 🟠 = Medium 🔴 = Hard

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By using our app, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms.

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