Rust-Book

Looking for a free self-hosted address book for RustDesk OSS?

Rust-Book provides account login and a shared legacy address book without requiring RustDesk Server Pro.

Rust-Book is a small, unofficial RustDesk-compatible account and legacy address-book API server.

It lets an unmodified RustDesk client log in to a custom API server and synchronize one legacy address book per Rust-Book account. It does not replace RustDesk's rendezvous or relay services.

Status

Current public version: 0.1.0

The compatibility surface has been tested with the official unmodified RustDesk Windows client 1.4.9 in one real legacy deployment. Other RustDesk versions may behave differently because this API is not a stable public upstream contract.

Features

• Password login for RustDesk clients.
• Bearer-token authentication with hashed token storage.
• currentUser and logout endpoints.
• Legacy single-address-book fallback through intentional POST /api/ab/personal HTTP 404.
• GET /api/ab, POST /api/ab, and POST /api/ab/get.
• SQLite storage for users, tokens, settings, tags, and peers.
• Lightweight browser admin panel under /admin.
• CLI user and migration tools.
• PHP 7.3-compatible source for legacy installations.
• Curl-based smoke tests.

What It Is Not

Rust-Book does not include or replace:

• hbbs;
• hbbr;
• RustDesk rendezvous or relay services;
• RustDesk client or server binaries;
• RustDesk keys;
• a modern multi-address-book API.

RustDesk is separate software with its own license. RustDesk source and binaries are not included in this repository.

For the separate unofficial hbbs secure TCP source patch project, see rustdesk-server-secure-tcp-patch: https://github.com/admiraldaro/rustdesk-server-secure-tcp-patch

That separate AGPL-3.0 project provides the source patch, build instructions, checksums, matching Corresponding Source, and an optional tested ARMv7 Linux hbbs binary as GitHub Release assets. The binary is not part of Rust-Book and is not an official RustDesk binary.

Requirements

For new installations, use a PHP release that is currently supported by the PHP project. The source is maintained to run on PHP 7.3+ for the verified legacy environment, but PHP 7.3 is not recommended for new public deployments.

Required PHP extensions:

• json
• pdo
• pdo_sqlite
• session
• hash

SQLite must be available through PDO SQLite. SQLite 3.24.0+ is required because the settings repository uses SQLite UPSERT syntax. The verified legacy SQLite version was 3.27.2.

Quick Start

cp config/config.example.php config/config.php
php scripts/migrate.php
printf '%s\n' 'change-this-password' | php scripts/user.php create admin --admin --password-stdin
php -S 127.0.0.1:21115 -t public public/index.php

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:21115/admin

In RustDesk, set API Server to the base URL only:

https://rust-book.example.com

or, for a custom HTTPS port:

https://rust-book.example.com:21113

Do not append /api.

Legacy Address Book

Rust-Book intentionally implements RustDesk's legacy single-address-book flow:

1. RustDesk calls POST /api/ab/personal.
2. Rust-Book returns HTTP 404 with an empty body.
3. RustDesk falls back to GET /api/ab.
4. RustDesk saves changes through POST /api/ab.

That 404 is expected and required. Returning 200 from /api/ab/personal without implementing the newer multi-book API can push clients into an unsupported protocol path.

Security Summary

• Serve the API over HTTPS outside localhost.
• Use public/ as the web document root.
• Keep SQLite, configuration, scripts, templates, and source files outside direct web access.
• No default administrator password is shipped.
• Passwords are stored with PHP's password hashing API.
• Bearer tokens are generated with secure randomness and stored only as hashes.
• The SQLite database is sensitive because it may contain RustDesk legacy peer hash values.

See SECURITY.md.

Documentation

• Installation
• Configuration
• Protocol Notes
• Architecture
• HTTPS
• RustDesk Compatibility
• Tested Environments
• Troubleshooting

Tests

Windows PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\php73_static_guard.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\curl_phase3.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\curl_phase4.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\curl_static_assets.ps1

Bash:

bash tests/curl_api_smoke.sh

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Rust-Book application code and documentation are released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.