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.

Impostor repositories

The only official mRemoteNXT repository is https://github.com/cremenescu/mRemoteNXT. Releases (.dmg) are published only there.

Any other repository on GitHub using the name "mRemoteNXT" is unaffiliated and may be malicious. The project is Swift only — if a repo claiming to be mRemoteNXT contains Lua, Python, JavaScript or pre-built executables, do not clone it and do not run anything from it.

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