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The FreeRDP iOS port supports Apple iOS devices. It was originally written to be compatible with iOS 4.3 and higher.
More documentation may be found at the FreeRDP Compilation wiki.

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Requirements

  • CMake >= 3.13
  • Xcode >= 4.6 (latest version recommended)
  • An iOS Developer Certificate and Provisioning Profile for code signing — not required for simulator builds
  • Pre-built static OpenSSL libraries (see below)

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Building OpenSSL

FreeRDP requires OpenSSL, which is not part of the iOS SDK and must be built separately. The repository ships a convenience script. Run it from the FreeRDP root directory: 
./scripts/OpenSSL-DownloadAndBuild.command
The output is placed in external/openssl/ by default. To use a different directory pass it as the first argument: 
./scripts/OpenSSL-DownloadAndBuild.command /tmp/
# Output will be in /tmp/openssl/
The script produces universal static libraries (libcrypto.a and libssl.a) covering arm64 (device) and i386 (simulator) targets.
If you build OpenSSL yourself or with a custom install directory, set FREERDP_IOS_EXTERNAL_SSL_PATH when running CMake to point to the root of the pre-built libraries.

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SDK version control

The script uses the oldest iOS/iPhoneSimulator SDK found on the build machine by default. You can override this with environment variables before running the script:
VariableDescription
SDK_VERSIONThe specific SDK version to build against.
MIN_SDK_VERSIONThe minimum SDK version to target.

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Build

1

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP.git
cd FreeRDP
2

Build OpenSSL static libraries

./scripts/OpenSSL-DownloadAndBuild.command
3

Generate the Xcode project

cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=cmake/ios.toolchain.cmake -GXcode
This creates FreeRDP.xcodeproj in the current directory.
4

Open in Xcode and build

open FreeRDP.xcodeproj
Then use Product > Build inside Xcode, or build from the command line:
xcodebuild -project FreeRDP.xcodeproj -configuration Debug -sdk iphoneos6.1
Alternatively, once CMake has generated the project you can also build with:
cmake --build .

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CMake variables

VariableDescription
CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILEMust be set to cmake/ios.toolchain.cmake.
IOS_PLATFORMOS (default) for physical devices (armv7, armv7s); SIMULATOR for the iOS Simulator (i386).
CMAKE_IOS_DEVELOPER_ROOTAbsolute path to the iOS developer platform. Auto-detected from IOS_PLATFORM by the toolchain file.
CMAKE_IOS_SDK_ROOTAbsolute path to the iOS SDK. Auto-detected from IOS_PLATFORM by the toolchain file.
FREERDP_IOS_EXTERNAL_SSL_PATHAbsolute root path to the pre-built static OpenSSL libraries.
CODE_SIGN_IDENTITYIdentity to sign the code with (e.g. iPhone Developer: Your Name).

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CI preload configuration

The repository ships ci/cmake-preloads/config-ios.txt with the settings used in CI: 
set(CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/ios.toolchain.cmake" CACHE PATH "cmake toolchain file")
set(CMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES "arm64" CACHE STRING "iOS platform to build")
set(CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET "10.0" CACHE STRING "iOS minimum target")
set(ENABLE_BITCODE OFF CACHE BOOL "iOS default")
set(BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF CACHE BOOL "iOS preload")
set(WITH_CLIENT OFF CACHE BOOL "disable iOS client")
set(WITH_SERVER OFF CACHE BOOL "disable iOS server")
set(WITH_KRB5 OFF CACHE BOOL "Kerberos support")
set(WITH_SIMD ON CACHE BOOL "iOS preload")

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Switching between device and simulator

When switching between IOS_PLATFORM=OS and IOS_PLATFORM=SIMULATOR, you must delete CMake’s cache before reconfiguring, otherwise build errors will occur:
rm CMakeCache.txt
rm -rf CMakeFiles/
Then run cmake again with the desired platform.

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Output location

Xcode builds the application into its derived data location by default (usually ~/Library/Developer/...). To specify a custom output directory, add CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR=<path> to the xcodebuild command: 
xcodebuild -project FreeRDP.xcodeproj \
  -configuration Release \
  -sdk iphoneos \
  CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR=/tmp/freerdp-ios/