Ubuntu 21 Remote desktop

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to connect to Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 via Remote Desktop Protocol [RDP].

In some cases, you may want to connect to Ubuntu desktop via remote desktop using existing protocols. At this moment, its pretty easy. Simply install few packages and youre ready to go.

Xrdp is an open-source implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol [RDP] that allows you to graphically control a remote computers.

It provides a fully functional Linux terminal server, capable of accepting connections from rdesktop, freerdp, and Microsofts own terminal server / remote desktop clients.

When youre ready, follow the steps below to get it working.

Step 1: Install Xrdp

Since you already have a desktop environment with Ubuntu Desktop edition, simply run the commands below to Xrdp.

sudo apt update sudo apt install xrdp sudo systemctl enable xrdp

To validate that Xrdp is installed, run the commands below:

sudo systemctl status xrdp

That should display similar text as below:

xrdp.service - xrdp daemon Loaded: loaded [/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: > Active: active [running] since Tue 2020-04-28 10:11:52 CDT; 15s ago Docs: man:xrdp[8] man:xrdp.ini[5] Main PID: 2989 [xrdp] Tasks: 1 [limit: 4657] Memory: 1.0M CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service 2989 /usr/sbin/xrdp Apr 28 10:11:51 ubuntu2004 xrdp[2986]: [2986][140239724779328][INFO ] address [> Apr 28 10:11:51 ubuntu2004 xrdp[2986]: [2986][140239724779328][INFO ] listening>

Step 2: Connect from Windows 10

Now that Xrdp server is installed, go and open Windows Remote Desktop Connection app and connect to the desktop hostname or IP address.

Please make to logout of your current Ubuntu desktop sessions. You cant be logged in to Ubuntu while connecting via Xrdp.

When you have logged out of Ubuntu desktop sessions, click Connect to initiate RDP connection. Youll be prompted for your Ubuntu login details.

Next, type in your Ubuntu machine account username and password and connect using Xorg

When your account username and password are confirmed, you should be logon to your Ubuntu machine from Windows.

Thats it!

Connecting to Ubuntu desktop is easy, since it already has a desktop environment.

Connecting to Ubuntu Servers

Since servers generally dont have graphical interface, you will need to install a minimal graphical interface for this to work in a server environment.

Run the commands below to install some necessary packages.

sudo apt update sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies xorg dbus-x11 x11-xserver-utils

Next, xrdp user to the sss-cert group by running the commands below:

sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert

That should get Xrdp installed and ready for connection on Ubuntu servers.

Since most Ubuntu servers dont have firewall enabled out of the box, no need to worry about firewall blocking connections.

However, if you have Ubuntu firewall enabled, simply run the commands below to allow RDP traffic.

For example, if youre connecting 192.168.1.0/24 network, then run the commands below:

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 3389 sudo ufw allow 3389

Thats it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to connect via Remote Desktop Protocol [RDP] to Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 Desktop and Servers.

If you find any error above, please use the comment form below to report it.

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