What is RDP in networking

In this article, we will answer what is RDP in networking questions. RDP or Remote Desktop Protocol is a network protocol to communicate between computers over the network. This is a graphical interface developed by Microsft and uses the client-server topology communication.

So, what is RDP in networking:

RDP is a protocol developed by Microsoft to enable GUI communication between computers. It is in use to remote control a computer over the network with full access to that system and its full user interface.

When we are talking about servers and terminal servers in particular RDP is the communication protocol between the Terminal Servers and the Terminal Servers Clients. It is built on top of TCP by encapsulating the TCP protocol and use encryption for security.

The communication in a remote desktop protocol is based on multiple channels. In theory, the RDP protocol can support up to 64K channels. In its basic functionality, it transmits the remote screen view and the keyboard/mouse devices from the client computer to the controller computer.

Open RDP on Windows 10:

You can open the Remote Desktop Connection to initialize an RDP connection to another computer by typing RDP in the Windows search box.

Press on the Windows button on your keyboard, and start typing RDP on that, it will use it as a search option to find RDP related stuff on your programs. You will see the Remote Desktop Connection app on that list. Open it to open the RDP connection GUI.

You can also find it under Programs- > Windows Accessories -> Remote Desktop Connection.

MSTSC RDP command:

There is a command that you can use to open the RDP client software, the command is mstsc. If you run this command with the /? you will get the following help screen regarding the mstsc command parameters.

for example, you can use the following command to specify a remote server and a port number that you want to open an RDP connection to:

mstsc -v <server name>

References:

• Microsoft docs: Understanding the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
• CyberArk: Explain Like I’m 5: Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
• Wikipedia: Remote Desktop Protocol

Last update 11/06/2020