In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Xrdp Server on Debian 10. For those of you who didn’t know, Xrdp is an open-source implementation of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) that allows you to control a remote system graphically. The protocol has more capabilities than VNC, like attaching local drives or printers to the remote computer. It is capable of accepting connections from rdesktop, freerdp, and remote desktop clients on other platforms.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of Xrdp on a Debian 10 (Buster) server.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 10 (Buster).
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
- SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install Xrdp Server on Debian 10 Buster
Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Installing Xrdp on Debian 10.
Xrdp package is available in the standard Debian repositories. Install using the following command:
sudo apt install xrdp
Once the installation process is complete, the service will automatically start. You can verify that the Xrdp service is running by typing:
sudo systemctl status xrdp
The Xrdp configuration files are stored in the /etc/xrdp directory. Whenever you make any changes to the configuration file you need to restart the Xrdp service:
sudo systemctl restart xrdp
Step 3. Configure firewall.
Allow just RDP through the local firewall:
sudo ufw allow 3389
You should be able to connect now. I use Remmina to connect from my laptop running Ubuntu. Windows users have an RDP connection application by default on their machine.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Xrdp. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Xrdp server on Debian 10 (Buster). For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Xrdp website.
