Access USB Devices in Remote Desktop Session [Linux]

This guide describes how to redirect USB devices from the RDP client to the server using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

1. Firstly, you will need to install USB over Ethernet software to:
   
   
   • • The computer with the attached USB device (Microsoft RDP client) - a USB Network Gate server.
     
     
   • • The remote machine (Microsoft RDP server) - a USB Network Gate client.

   Note: Since USB Network Gate version 7.x, the software supports ICA protocol, i.e. the USB devices plugged into a thin client will appear in a remote session over ICA.

   
   
2. So, here is how to access the USB port/device in the remote desktop session:
   
   

   For a USB Network Gate server that runs on the Linux machine, execute the following command in the Terminal:

   xfreerdp --plugin usb4rdp <remote address=""></remote>
   
   

   where <remote address> is the remote RDP server’s IP address or domain name or computer name. This command launches RDP client xfreerdp together with our plugin.

   Notes:

   • – You can also load other plugins for freeRDP. For example:
   xfreerdp --plugin cliprdr --plugin usb4rdp xxx.xx.xx.xx
   
   

   This command launches RDP client xfreerdp together with our and cliprdr plugins that ensure synchronization of client and server clipboard data.

   Refer to freeRDP documentation to find out about supported plugins and available user commands.

   • – To share audio USB device in RDP session, xfreerdp should be launched with additional options:
   xfreerdp plugin usb4rdp -0 -o server
   
   

   This will make audio data be transferred by the means of USB Network Gate and not the RDP client.

   UNG plugin is compatible with xfreerdp version starting from 1.0. rdesktop and Remmina are not supported.

   
   
3. Thanks to RemoteFX USB Redirection [MS-RDPEUSB] support in USB Network Gate for Linux, it is possible to redirect shared USB devices from a server machine running Linux (Terminal Client) to a Windows client machine (Terminal Server) even without installing USB Network Gate on the latter.
   
   

   The client should be either Windows 8 (real or virtual machine) or Hyper-V running Windows 7 SP 1, with the RemoteFX GPU added, launched on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 or Server 2012.

   The command is as follows:

   xfreerdp-usb [shared-ports] xfreerdp-args
   
   

   Arguments are the following:

   • – shared-ports: comma-separated list of TCP ports for USB devices shared via USB Network Gate. If not specified, all shared USB devices will be redirected.
     
     
   • – xfreerdp-args: arguments to pass to xfreerdp.

   For example:

   Redirect all shared USB devices:

   xfreerdp-usb -u User -p Pass 192.168.0.123
   
   

   Redirect USB devices shared on 1909 and 1910 TCP ports:

   xfreerdp-usb 1909,1910 -u User -p Pass 192.168.0.123
   
   

   If you get the “SSL_read: I/O” error, add the “--rfx” parameter without quotes before the IP address.

   Note: In case one of these is enabled: traffic encryption, authorization, traffic compression, then sharing of USB device in remote desktop session will be unavailable.