Internal
Public Access
ksmithandClaude Sonnet 5
e80fe7d634
Live testing against a real macOS Screen Sharing server surfaced two real bugs, independent of each other: 1. SessionTab::requestConnectOptions() never prompted for a password on VNC profiles (only SSH/RDP) -- every VNC connection went out with an empty password regardless of what the server needed. VNC now gets its own prompt; an empty password is allowed through (unlike RDP's hard requirement) since no-auth VNC servers exist and there's no way to know client-side before the security-type negotiation happens. 2. VncSessionBackend's Apple DH (type 30) response sent the client's public key before the encrypted credentials. Cross-checking against neatvnc's rfb-proto.h (an independent, authoritative reference: both the wire struct definitions and the full server-side verification code, matched field-by-field against this implementation) showed the correct order is credentials first, then public key -- exactly backwards from what was implemented. Fixed, with a new regression test that decrypts the credentials back out using the trailing public-key bytes to derive the shared secret, which would fail if the fields were swapped again. Also adds security type 33 (RSA + AES, src/vnc_apple_rsa_auth.h) as a fallback Apple auth scheme, sourced from the `asyncvnc` PyPI package. Preference when multiple are offered: None > AppleDH(30) > AppleRSA(33) > VNCAuth(2). Neither scheme has been gotten working live yet against the specific macOS Tahoe (26.6.2) server available for testing -- type 30's wire format is now verified correct byte-for-byte against the independent reference above, but the server still rejects it with a generic "Authentication or authorization failure"; type 33 is rejected even earlier, right after the initial host-key request. macOS Tahoe was released after this assistant's knowledge cutoff, so there may be a protocol or permission-model change specific to it that isn't reflected in either reference. Documented as an open issue in docs/PROGRESS.md rather than claimed as working. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
OrbitHub
OrbitHub is a cross-platform native desktop app for managing and launching remote sessions from one place.
It is implemented in C++17 with Qt6 Widgets and built with CMake.
Supported target platforms:
- Windows
- Linux
- macOS
Current Status
OrbitHub is in active development.
- Milestones completed: M0-M9
- Current milestone: Milestone 10 (v1.0 Stabilization)
- Latest checkpoint tag:
v2026.9.15 - VNC (M6) covers standard VNC Authentication and no-auth servers; see docs/PROGRESS.md for known gaps (Apple Screen Sharing auth, compression encodings, resize, cursor sync, clipboard)
Progress and milestone details:
Latest release (installers for Windows, Linux, and macOS):
User Guide:
- docs/USER_GUIDE.md (also available as a PDF attached to each release, and in-app via
Help -> User Guide)
Screenshots
Profiles organized into folders, with protocol, host, and tags shown at a glance. (Sample data shown; not real hosts.)
An interactive SSH terminal session in a tab, with the event log below.
An embedded RDP session in a tab.
Implemented Features
Profile Management
- SQLite-backed profile storage
- Create, edit, delete profiles
- Protocol-aware profile validation (SSH/RDP/VNC)
- Profile search and sorting
- Tags support
- Folder/subfolder support
ListandFoldersprofile views- Right-click profile tree actions:
- New Folder
- New Connection
- Drag-and-drop profile moves between folders with persistence
Session Experience
- Multi-tab session window
- Auto-connect on tab open
- Disconnect on tab close
- Session state indicators on tabs
- Timestamped event log with filtering and export
SSH
- Embedded interactive terminal (in-app typing)
- Theme support (
Dark,Light,Solarized Dark) - Password and private-key auth flows
- Known-hosts policy support
RDP
- Embedded in-window RDP rendering surface (no external launcher)
- Keyboard/mouse input forwarding
- Resize handling and resolution renegotiation
- Domain-aware authentication support
- RDP security/performance profile options
App UX
- App icon and themed About dialog
Filemenu:- New Profile
- New Folder
- Quit
Helpmenu:- About OrbitHub
Build and Run
Detailed platform instructions:
Quick start (Linux/macOS with Ninja):
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja
cmake --build build
./build/orbithub
Packaging
Detailed packaging instructions for all platforms:
Linux (.deb):
./packaging/linux/build-deb.sh
Linux (Flatpak):
./packaging/flatpak/build-flatpak.sh
Windows (Inno Setup installer):
.\packaging\windows\build-installer.ps1
macOS (.dmg):
./packaging/macos/build-dmg.sh
Dependencies
Core dependencies:
- Qt 6 (Widgets, SQL)
- CMake 3.21+
- C++17 toolchain
Protocol/runtime dependencies:
- SSH client (
ssh) available onPATHfor SSH sessions
Bundled/vendored third-party components:
- KodoTerm
- libvterm
- FreeRDP/WinPR
Licensing
Project license:
- MIT (see LICENSE)
License links:
- MIT License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
- GNU LGPLv3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html
- Apache License 2.0: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Important third-party license notes:
- Qt6 is dynamically linked in this project build setup.
- Qt6 is used under LGPLv3 terms in this project build setup.
- KodoTerm and libvterm are MIT-licensed.
- FreeRDP/WinPR is Apache-2.0 licensed.
Repository license files:
- Project: LICENSE
- KodoTerm: third_party/KodoTerm/LICENSE
- FreeRDP: third_party/FreeRDP/LICENSE
See in-app Help -> About OrbitHub for license links and third-party inventory.
Repository Structure
src/- application source codedocs/- build guide, spec, and progress trackingthird_party/- vendored third-party dependenciesbuild/- local build output (generated)
Notes
- Passwords are requested at connect time and are not stored in the profile database.
- VNC support covers standard VNC Authentication and no-auth servers (e.g. TigerVNC, x11vnc, TightVNC); it doesn't yet reach macOS's built-in Screen Sharing server, which uses a different authentication scheme (see docs/PROGRESS.md, Milestone 6).