In this tutorial, we will show you how to install XRDP on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, XRDP is an Open Source Remote desktop Protocol server, which allows you to RDP to your Linux server. 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 the step-by-step installation of XRDP on an Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) server.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver).
- 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 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Installing XRDP on Ubuntu 18.04.
Now, Run the following command to install xrdp on Ubuntu:
sudo apt install xrdp
After installing, set up the Xsession file for xrdp.Run the following command:
echo mate-session> ~/.xsession
Now, Install the Mate-Core Package. To install the mate-core package, you need to run the following command:
sudo apt-get install mate-core
Step 3. Configure firewall.
Allow just RDP through the local firewall:
sudo ufw allow 3389/tcp
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 XRDP open-source remote desktop protocol on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official XRDP website.
