Remote Desktop

Setting up a remote desktop

This is handy, e.g., when creating test environments with large disks, where we still need a graphical session to run the desktop app.

Create a normal Ubuntu instance (tweak the exact commands if using a different distro).

Install

• Xfce4 - The desktop environment
• xorg - An X server
• xrdp - A remote desktop protocol (RDP) server.

sudo apt install xfce4 xorg xrdp

Configure xrdp to use Xfce

echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession

Start the xrdp service, and also enable it so that it starts on boot

sudo systemctl enable xrdp
sudo systemctl start xrdp

On macOS, install a RDP client, e.g. Microsoft Remote Desktop.