rustguac/docs/installation.md

Installation

Option A: Debian package (recommended)

Pre-built .deb packages are available from the releases page for Debian 13 (Trixie) and compatible distributions.

sudo apt install ./rustguac_*.deb

Using apt install (not dpkg -i) ensures all runtime dependencies are resolved automatically.

The package installs to /opt/rustguac and creates systemd services for both guacd and rustguac.

Post-install

1. Create an admin API key:

/opt/rustguac/bin/rustguac --config /opt/rustguac/config.toml add-admin --name admin

Save the printed API key — it is only shown once.

2. Configure — edit /opt/rustguac/config.toml as needed (see Configuration).

3. Start the services:

sudo systemctl enable --now rustguac

This starts both rustguac-guacd (the protocol daemon) and rustguac (the web proxy).

4. (Recommended) Set up the connections with Vault / OpenBao:

The connections is rustguac's primary way to manage connections. It stores SSH, RDP, VNC, and web session entries in HashiCorp Vault or OpenBao KV v2. Credentials are stored server-side and never sent to the browser.

Without Vault, rustguac can still create ad-hoc sessions via the API, but the connections UI (the main user-facing feature) will not be available.

See Vault / OpenBao Connections for full setup instructions, including Vault policy, AppRole configuration, and the [vault] config section.

6. (Optional) Set up encrypted drive storage:

sudo /opt/rustguac/bin/drive-setup.sh

See Drive / File Transfer for details.

7. (Optional) Enable VDI desktop containers:

If you want to use VDI sessions (ephemeral Docker desktop containers), install Docker and grant rustguac access:

# Install Docker (if not already installed)
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh

# Allow rustguac to manage containers
sudo usermod -aG docker rustguac
sudo systemctl restart rustguac

Then add a [vdi] section to your config — see VDI Desktop Containers for full setup.

Option B: Bare-metal install script

For fresh Debian 13 systems, the install script builds everything from source:

sudo ./install.sh

This performs the following steps:

1. Installs system packages (build tools, Xvnc, Chromium, cryptsetup, etc.)
2. Installs the Rust toolchain (if not present)
3. Clones and builds guacd from guacamole-server source, applying patches automatically
4. Builds rustguac with cargo build --release
5. Creates the rustguac system user (home: /home/rustguac)
6. Generates a self-signed TLS certificate
7. Installs binaries, static files, and config to /opt/rustguac
8. Sets up systemd services

Install flags

Flag	Description
--no-tls	Skip TLS certificate generation, listen on HTTP port 8089
--hostname=FQDN	Hostname for the TLS certificate (default: system hostname)
--deps-only	Only install system packages, then exit
--no-deps	Skip apt package installation

Installed layout

/opt/rustguac/
  bin/rustguac           # Main binary
  bin/drive-setup.sh     # LUKS drive setup script
  sbin/guacd             # Guacamole protocol daemon
  lib/                   # guacd shared libraries
  static/                # Web UI files
  tls/                   # TLS certificates
  data/                  # SQLite database
  recordings/            # Session recordings
  config.toml            # Configuration file
  env                    # Environment variables (VAULT_SECRET_ID, etc.)

Systemd services

Service	Description
rustguac-guacd	guacd protocol daemon (TLS, loopback only)
rustguac	rustguac web proxy (depends on guacd)

Both services run as the rustguac user and restart on failure.

The rustguac service loads environment variables from /opt/rustguac/env via systemd's EnvironmentFile directive. Use this for secrets like VAULT_SECRET_ID and OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET.

Option C: Docker

Pre-built images are available on Docker Hub:

docker pull sol1/rustguac:latest
docker run -d -p 8089:8089 sol1/rustguac:latest

To build from source instead:

docker build -t rustguac .
docker run -d -p 8089:8089 rustguac

The Docker image:

• Uses a multi-stage build (Debian 13 trixie-slim runtime)
• Builds guacd from source with patches applied
• Generates a self-signed TLS certificate at build time
• Enables TLS between rustguac and guacd by default
• Exposes HTTP on port 8089 (put a reverse proxy in front for HTTPS)

API key setup

On first run (when no database exists), the container automatically generates an admin API key and prints it to the logs:

docker logs rustguac

Save the printed key — it is only shown once. To generate additional keys later:

docker exec rustguac /opt/rustguac/bin/rustguac \
    --config /opt/rustguac/config.toml add-admin --name my-admin

Customizing the configuration

To persist config changes across container restarts, bind-mount a local config.toml into the container:

1. Copy the default config from the image:

docker run --rm --entrypoint cat sol1/rustguac:latest /opt/rustguac/config.toml.default > config.toml

2. Edit config.toml as needed (see Configuration):

# Example: allow SSH to private networks
ssh_allowed_networks = ["127.0.0.0/8", "::1/128", "10.0.0.0/8", "172.16.0.0/12", "192.168.0.0/16"]

3. Mount it in your Docker Compose file or docker run command (see below).

If no config file is mounted, the container uses a built-in default on first start.

Docker Compose example

services:
  rustguac:
    image: sol1/rustguac:latest
    ports:
      - "8089:8089"
    volumes:
      - ./config.toml:/opt/rustguac/config.toml
      - rustguac-data:/opt/rustguac/data
      - rustguac-recordings:/opt/rustguac/recordings
    environment:
      - RUST_LOG=info

volumes:
  rustguac-data:
  rustguac-recordings:

Option D: RPM package (build from source)

Pre-built RPM packages are not currently provided. An RPM spec file (rustguac.spec) and build script (build-rpm.sh) are included for Red Hat / Fedora / Rocky Linux based systems. You will need FreeRDP 3.x development headers installed.

# Install build dependencies (example for Rocky/RHEL 9)
sudo dnf install -y epel-release
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb
sudo dnf install -y gcc gcc-c++ make git autoconf automake libtool \
    freerdp-devel cairo-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libpng-devel libwebp-devel \
    libssh2-devel openssl-devel libvncserver-devel pango-devel \
    pulseaudio-libs-devel rpm-build

# Build the RPM
bash build-rpm.sh
sudo rpm -i rustguac-*.rpm

RPM builds are untested — contributions and feedback are welcome.

Option E: Development

# Clone guacamole-server alongside rustguac
git clone https://github.com/apache/guacamole-server.git ../guacamole-server

# Install build deps, build guacd, build + run rustguac
./dev.sh deps
./dev.sh build-guacd
./dev.sh start

For development with TLS:

./dev.sh generate-cert

cat > config.local.toml <<EOF
[tls]
cert_path = "cert.pem"
key_path = "key.pem"
guacd_cert_path = "cert.pem"
EOF

./dev.sh start

System dependencies

For bare-metal installs, rustguac requires:

• Rust toolchain (1.75+)
• guacd (built from guacamole-server source)
• Xvnc (tigervnc-standalone-server) — for web browser sessions
• Chromium — for web browser sessions
• cryptsetup — for LUKS encrypted drive storage
• Build libraries for guacd: libcairo2, libjpeg, libpng, libwebp, libssh2, libssl, libvncserver, libpango, libpulse, ffmpeg, freerdp3

See install.sh for the full package list.

guacamole-server patches

guacd requires patches to build and run correctly with FreeRDP 3.15+ as shipped in Debian 13. These patches are in the patches/ directory and are applied automatically by all build scripts.

The patches fix:

1. Autoconf -Werror vs deprecated FreeRDP headers — FreeRDP 3.15 deprecates codecs_free(), breaking compile tests
2. Deprecated function pointer API — replaces ->input->MouseEvent() etc. with safe FreeRDP 3.x functions
3. NULL pointer dereference — FreeRDP 3.x fires PubSub events before guac_rdp_disp is allocated
4. Struct layout mismatch — channel source files missing config.h see wrong field offsets when SSH support is enabled