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RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) is Microsoft's protocol for using a remote Windows computer as if you were sitting in front of it. The remote machine's screen gets transmitted to you; your keyboard and mouse input travels back the other way. RDP is what powers Windows Remote Desktop connections and Remote Desktop Services, and it listens on TCP and UDP port 3389 by default.
RDP carries your keyboard, mouse, and screen over an encrypted channel to a remote computer.
An RDP client, whether that is Windows' built-in Remote Desktop Connection, the Windows App, or a third-party client on macOS, Linux, iOS, or Android, opens a connection to the RDP listener on the target machine. The connection negotiates security first. Network Level Authentication, which authenticates the user via CredSSP before any session gets created, is strongly recommended and enabled by default on supported modern Windows versions. Only then does the server encode its display output and stream it to the client, while input events flow back the other way. The protocol also multiplexes extra channels for clipboard, printers, drives, audio, and smart cards, which is the whole reason device redirection works inside a session. RDP prefers UDP transport when network conditions allow, for smoother graphics; when they don't, it just falls back to TCP.
An RDP session is the authenticated, stateful connection between one user and the remote machine: the desktop, the running applications, all the channel streams together. A session can be active, disconnected (the client closed but the programs keep running server-side), or logged off entirely. Client Windows only ever runs one interactive session at a time. Concurrent multi-user sessions are what Remote Desktop Services adds on Windows Server. Session limits, idle timeouts, and reconnection behavior all come down to Group Policy and RDS configuration.
Informally, an "RDP server" is just any machine accepting RDP connections: a workstation with Remote Desktop turned on, or a Windows Server running the RD Session Host role. You will also see the phrase in gray-market hosting offers selling shared RDP access. Those services have nothing to do with the protocol itself, and plenty of them violate licensing terms in the process.
Clients exist for every major platform, and open-source servers such as xrdp bring the protocol to Linux. The remote host in most business deployments remains Windows, because RDP is the native remoting layer of the Windows ecosystem.
Remote Desktop Protocol.
The transport-level link between client and host. A session is what exists after authentication succeeds on top of that connection.
RDP encrypts traffic with TLS just fine. The primary risks are generally exposure, credential attacks, and authorization weaknesses rather than breaking the underlying encryption. The full picture: RDP Security →
The protocol and client are built into Windows. Server-side multi-user access requires RDS CALs →
Where TruGrid fits. TruGrid SecureRDP delivers RDP sessions with MFA and no open inbound ports, so you keep the protocol's convenience without inheriting its exposure. Explore SecureRDP →
TruGrid SecureRDP delivers Zero Trust remote desktop access: MFA, least privilege, and zero open inbound ports.
Explore SecureRDP →
TruGrid simplifies Access and Device Security for organizations by reducing complexity and associated costs.
