Building on macOS

Build FreeRDP from source on macOS using Homebrew for dependencies and CMake with Ninja.

Starting with macOS El Capitan, Apple removed the system OpenSSL headers. You must install OpenSSL separately — Homebrew is the recommended approach.

More documentation may be found at the FreeRDP Compilation wiki.

Prerequisites

Install Homebrew, then install the required dependencies:

brew install \
  cmake ninja pkg-config \
  openssl \
  krb5 \
  cjson \
  sdl2 sdl2_ttf \
  ffmpeg \
  libusb

OpenSSL PKG_CONFIG_PATH

Because Homebrew installs OpenSSL in a non-default location, you must set PKG_CONFIG_PATH before running CMake:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(brew --prefix)/opt/openssl/lib/pkgconfig

Add this line to your shell profile (~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile) to make it permanent.

Build

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP.git /tmp/freerdp/src
   
2. Set PKG_CONFIG_PATH for OpenSSL

   export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(brew --prefix)/opt/openssl/lib/pkgconfig
   
3. Configure with CMake

   cmake -GNinja \
     -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
     -DWITH_VERBOSE_WINPR_ASSERT=OFF \
     -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/tmp/freerdp/install \
     -B /tmp/freerdp/build \
     -S /tmp/freerdp/src
   
4. Compile and install

   cmake --build /tmp/freerdp/build --target install
   

CI preload configuration

The repository ships a macOS preload file at ci/cmake-preloads/config-macosx.txt. The key settings it applies are:

set(WITH_CUPS ON CACHE BOOL "CUPS printing")
set(WITH_X11 ON CACHE BOOL "Enable X11")
set(WITH_SERVER ON CACHE BOOL "build with server")
set(WITH_KRB5 OFF CACHE BOOL "Kerberos support")
set(WITH_FFMPEG OFF CACHE BOOL "ci default")
set(WITH_SWSCALE OFF CACHE BOOL "ci default")

Apply it with:

cmake -C /tmp/freerdp/src/ci/cmake-preloads/config-macosx.txt \
  -GNinja \
  -B /tmp/freerdp/build \
  -S /tmp/freerdp/src

cmake --build /tmp/freerdp/build

Notable macOS flags

Flag	Description
-DWITH_CUPS=ON	Enable CUPS printing support.
-DWITH_X11=ON	Build the X11 client (requires XQuartz).
-DWITH_KRB5=OFF	Disable Kerberos (often not available on macOS without extra setup).
-DCHANNEL_URBDRC=OFF	Disable USB redirection (no libusb in default macOS CI).
-DWITH_FUSE=OFF	Disable FUSE clipboard (macFUSE required if enabled).

Use ccmake /tmp/freerdp/build to browse and modify all CMake cache variables interactively.