mRemoteNXT

Romanian: see README.ro.md

Native macOS multi-protocol remote connection client (SSH, RDP, Telnet, SFTP, HTTP/HTTPS) with direct import of confCons.xml files from mRemoteNG.

Written as a native Mac alternative for people who use mRemoteNG on Windows and don't want to give up the connection tree, encrypted passwords and the tabs+panels layout.

Status: alpha. Used daily against ~700 real connections, but some features are missing and exotic configurations can hit bugs. See Known limitations.

Screenshots

More screenshots

The data shown is the demo file at examples/demo-config.xml — IANA documentation ranges, no real hosts.

Features

• Direct confCons.xml import (schema 2.6, with mRemoteNG's default passphrase or a custom one). Crypto validated byte-exact against real files (PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA1 + AES-256-GCM).
• Connection tree with folders, attribute inheritance, drag&drop reorder, original mRemoteNG icons, guide lines.
• Panels — group connections into top-level tabs like on Windows.
• Search / filter by name, host, protocol, description.
• SSH + Telnet embedded in tabs (PTY over system ssh/telnet via SwiftTerm). PuTTY-style copy-on-select + right-click paste.
• SFTP in terminal (right-click an SSH connection → "Transfer files").
• RDP embedded via FreeRDP (GFX/disp/cliprdr channels wired by hand, live resize, correct DPI scaling on Retina, Ctrl+Alt+Del via menu).
• HTTP / HTTPS embedded in WKWebView with auto-fill of username + password from the tree (handy for router / iLO / switch web UIs).
• External Tools with macros (%Host% %Username% %Port% %Password% %Domain% %Name%) — executed in a terminal tab.
• Connection editor modal in Royal TSX style (categories: General / Connection / Credentials / Appearance / Advanced) + a bottom status bar with host / user / password click-to-copy.
• Auto-backup on save to backups/confCons-<timestamp>.xml on every write (your original file is never lost).
• Terminal themes (Default, Solarized, Dracula, etc.), live-adjustable font size, zoom Cmd+/Cmd-.

Known limitations

• FullFileEncryption="true" (whole XML encrypted) — not implemented.
• Schema ConfVersion > 2.6 — untested.
• Panel inheritance across multiple levels — partial.
• RDP: image-clipboard redirect, drive / sound redirect, remote cursor visibility (pointer set/new callbacks).
• VNC (planned).
• External applications (IntApp nodes) — launching not implemented.
• Quick Connect (URL ssh://user@host:port) from CLI.

System requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer.
• Xcode 16+ (with Metal Toolchain — see BUILD.md).
• Homebrew with freerdp (3.x) and xcodegen.

Installation

Option A: pre-built .dmg (recommended)

Download the latest mRemoteNXT-vX.Y.Z-alpha.dmg from Releases, open it, drag the app to the Applications shortcut.

Because the bundle is ad-hoc signed (no paid Apple Developer ID yet), macOS Gatekeeper shows a "damaged / can't be opened" warning on first launch. Clear it once with:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/mRemoteNXT.app

Then open mRemoteNXT.app from /Applications. No Homebrew install required — FreeRDP and friends are bundled inside the app.

Option B: build from source

See BUILD.md. Requires Xcode, Homebrew, freerdp, xcodegen. Run ./build/package.sh to produce your own .dmg.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

The bundled icon set is taken from the official mRemoteNG project (GPL-2.0), which is why this project is under the same license. The code and the confCons.xml format were re-implemented independently (not a port of their code) from observation of real files produced by mRemoteNG.

Credits / dependencies

• mRemoteNG — confCons.xml format and icon set (GPL-2.0).
• FreeRDP — RDP client library (Apache-2.0).
• SwiftTerm — terminal emulator (MIT).
• Apple SwiftUI / AppKit / WebKit / CryptoKit / CommonCrypto.

Disclaimer

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or warranted by the mRemoteNG team. "mRemoteNG" is used only as a format-compatibility reference.

Author

Razvan Cremenescu — https://github.com/cremenescu