Install xRDP with Ubuntu Desktop on Oracle ARM VM

1/23/2022

Remote Desktop Protocol allows users to access remote systems desktop. The XRDP service provides you a graphical login to the remote machines using Microsoft RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). The XRDP also supports two-way clipboard transfer (text, bitmap, file), audio redirection, and drive redirection (mount local client drives on the remote machines).

XRDP is an easy-to-install and configurable service for Ubuntu systems. This post is going to show you the steps how you can get your Ubuntu desktop and xRDP installed on Oracle ARM based VM.

System Update and Add a new user

update system repositories

apt update -y

optional: apt upgrade -y

add a new user netsec which later you can use it to log in

adduser netsec

Enable Password Log In (Optional)

By default, Oracle vm is using certificate to log in and password login has been disabled.

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

comment the line

#PasswordAuthentication no

Install Desktop

There are various desktop environments available in Ubuntu repositories that you can choose. One option is to install Gnome, which is the default desktop environment in Ubuntu 20.04. Another option is to install Xfce . It is a fast, stable, and lightweight desktop environment, which makes it ideal for usage on a remote server.

Run one of the commands below to install the desktop environment of your choice.

Install Gnome:

sudo apt updatesudo apt install ubuntu-desktop

Install Xfce:

sudo apt updatesudo apt install xubuntu-desktop

Depending on your system, downloading and installing GUI packages will take some time.

Install and Configure xRDP

Xrdp is incuded in the default Ubuntu repositories. To install it, run:

sudo apt install xrdp

Once the installation is complete, the Xrdp service will automatically start. You can verify it by typing:

sudo systemctl status xrdp

Enable 3389 port on IPv4 interface. By default , port=3389, which will cause 3389 port running on inet6 interface. You can verify port running status from following two commands

apt install net-tools
netstat -na | grep 3389

To change the configuration, edit xrdp.ini file using following command:

sudo nano /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

Reboot the service to take the configuration change into effect.

systemctl restart xrdp

Disable Built-in Firewall

If you are using Oracle's Ubuntu image, you will have connectivity issue to the port 3389 since built-in iptables will block the external connection. Testing from local will still work, but not from remote.

Here is command to disable iptables. You might need to install netfilter-persitent using command first : "apt install netfilter-persistent -y"

sudo iptables -F

sudo netfilter-persistent save

Explanation:

iptables -F: Flush (remove all) iptables rules
netfilter-persistent save Save empty ruleset to disk so it

Checking iptables rules using iptables -L or iptables --list command.

If the iptables ruleset is empty, it will look like this:

Default output is:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination