Installing Xfce and XRDP Service on Remote Ubuntu 22.04

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Prerequisites

You already log in to your remote Linux server

Once your server is deployed, the login credentials are usually sent to your registered email. You can also get server login information, including username, password, and port in the Database Mart control panel, please refer to guide on how to manage servers in Database Mart control panel.

Please refer to the guide How to Connect to a Linux Server Remotely to log in to your Remote Linux Server. Next, input your login password as prompted.

Install Xfce Desktop Environment and XRDP Service on Remote Ubuntu 22.04 Servers

Install Xfce on Ubuntu Servers

In this example, we will use the Ubuntu 22.04 operating system.

As the following several operations require the root permission, we will switch to the root user first using the command below.

sudo -i

Switch to the root user by running command sudo -i

After that, issue the commands below to update your list of packages, followed by installing Xfce and the xfce4-goodies pacakge, which includes additional software and artwork that are related to the Xfce desktop.

apt update
apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies

Before the installation, you are often prompted to confirm the disk space this operation will use. Input "y" to continue the installation.

During the installation, you will be prompted to choose a default display manager - gdm3 or Lightdm - for Xfce. Choose either one and press enter to continue.

Install XRDP on Ubuntu

XRDP is a protocol that allows you to connect to your Ubuntu system remotely using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

Issue the commands below to install xrdp service.

apt install xrdp -y

After installing xrdp, verify the status of xrdp using the following command.

systemctl status xrdp

Configure XRDP

Now, we will configure that xfce4-session is used as a session manager upon graphical login request. If you don’t write this information into the .xsession file, no session manager is chosen, and the RDP session will fail to connect to the graphical display. Use the echo command and then restart xrdp service.

echo "xfce4-session" | tee .xsession
systemctl restart xrdp

Test the RDP Connection

Now, we can test if you can connect to the remote Ubuntu server using RDP.

Open RDP service on your local machine. Then, input your Linux Ubuntu server IP in the Computer field and click Connect.

Then, you can see the RDP login interface. Enter your Linux server login username and password and click OK.

With the authentication passed, you should be able to access your Ubuntu Desktop environment.