[Ubuntu] Xfce usage for RDP access to Ubuntu server

Freya VPS Hosting Team

In this tutorial we will provide an instruction on how to setup RDP connection to your Ubuntu server with Xfce graphical environment.

Why Xfce? Because Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for Linux operating system, so more resources will be for your services usage.

Requirements:
Freshly installed Ubuntu operating system on our Container VPS or Linux VPS server.

1. Install Xfce desktop environment:

apt-get update

apt install -y xubuntu-desktop

Check for a default display manager lightdm.

2. Reboot a server from a client system or perform a command:

reboot

3. Let's make selected display manager to be automated:

apt install -y expect

cat <<EOF | expect

set timeout -1

spawn sudo apt install -y xubuntu-desktop

expect "Default display manager: "

send "lightdm\n"

expect eof

EOF

4. Reboot a server from a client system or perform a command:

reboot

5. Install xrdp:

apt install -y xrdp

sed -e 's/^new_cursors=true/new_cursors=false/g' \
-i /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

systemctl enable xrdp

systemctl restart xrdp

6. For Container VPS
Remove Network manager which will prevent proper network configuration and restart server
apt-get remove network-manage

reboot

7. Create .xsession and .xsessionrc in home directory of user to be connected:

echo "xfce4-session" > ~/.xsession

D=/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/share/xubuntu:/usr/local/share

D=${D}:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop:/usr/share

cat <<EOF > ~/.xsessionrc

export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=xubuntu

export XDG_DATA_DIRS=${D}

export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu:/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg

EOF

Connect to the server via any Remote Desktop client that you are using. Here is a tutorial on how to connect to server through RDP on Windows and on Linux: