If you want to connect to Ubuntu server remotely via RDP, the steps below is a good place to start.
This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to connect to Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
Sometimes, you may want to connect to the Ubuntu desktop via a remote desktop using existing protocols. At this moment, it’s pretty easy. Simply install a few packages, and you’re ready to go.
Xrdp is an open-source Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) implementation allowing you to control a remote computer graphically.
It provides a fully functional Linux terminal server, capable of accepting connections from rdesktop, freerdp, and Microsoft’s a terminal server / remote desktop clients.
When you’re ready, follow the steps below to get it working.
Install xrdp
Since you already have a desktop environment with Ubuntu Desktop edition, simply run the commands below to Xrdp.
sudo apt update sudo apt install xrdp sudo systemctl enable xrdp
To validate that Xrdp is installed, run the commands below:
sudo systemctl status xrdp
That should display similar text as below:
xrdp.service - xrdp daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: >
Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-04-28 10:11:52 CDT; 15s ago
Docs: man:xrdp(8)
man:xrdp.ini(5)
Main PID: 2989 (xrdp)
Tasks: 1 (limit: 4657)
Memory: 1.0M
CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service
└─2989 /usr/sbin/xrdp
Apr 28 10:11:51 ubuntu2004 xrdp[2986]: (2986)(140239724779328)[INFO ] address [>
Apr 28 10:11:51 ubuntu2004 xrdp[2986]: (2986)(140239724779328)[INFO ] listening>
Connect from Windows 10
Now that the Xrdp server is installed open the Windows Remote Desktop Connection app and connect to the desktop hostname or IP address.
Please make out log out of your current Ubuntu desktop sessions. You can’t be logged in to Ubuntu while connecting via Xrdp.
When logged out of Ubuntu desktop sessions, click Connect to initiate an RDP connection. You’ll be prompted for your Ubuntu login details.
Next, type in your Ubuntu machine account username and password and connect using Xorg
When your account username and password are confirmed, you should be login to your Ubuntu machine from Windows.
That’s it!
Connecting to the Ubuntu desktop is easy since it already has a desktop environment.
Connecting to Ubuntu Servers
Since servers generally don’t have a graphical interface, you will need to install a minimal one for this to work in a server environment.
Run the commands below to install some necessary packages.
sudo apt update sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies xorg dbus-x11 x11-xserver-utils
Next, xrdp user to the sss-cert group by running the commands below:
sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert
That should get Xrdp installed and ready for connection on Ubuntu servers.
Since most Ubuntu servers don’t have a firewall enabled out of the box, there is no need to worry about firewall blocking connections.
However, if the Ubuntu firewall is enabled, simply run the commands below to allow RDP traffic.
For example, if you’re connecting 192.168.1.0/24 network, then run the commands below:
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 3389 sudo ufw allow 3389
That’s it!
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to connect via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 Desktops and Servers.
If you find any error above, please report it in the comment form below.
Thanks,
You may also like the post below:
Hey there, I’ve installed this on a Ubuntu 20.04 VM inside of Proxmox. It was working just fine until it seems, I rebooted the VM. I get errors now:
~$ sudo systemctl status xrdp
● xrdp.service – xrdp daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2020-05-07 17:07:24 PDT; 25min ago
Docs: man:xrdp(8)
man:xrdp.ini(5)
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: Starting xrdp daemon…
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: xrdp.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILU>
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: xrdp.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: Failed to start xrdp daemon.
lines 1-10/10 (END)
Seems my last comment did not get posted:
xRDP is not working after (i think) I rebooted my Ubuntu 20.04 VM machine inside of Proxmox. Errors:
~$ sudo systemctl status xrdp
● xrdp.service – xrdp daemon
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2020-05-07 17:07:24 PDT; 25min ago
Docs: man:xrdp(8)
man:xrdp.ini(5)
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: Starting xrdp daemon…
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: xrdp.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILU>
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: xrdp.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
May 07 17:07:24 Ubuntu-VM systemd[1]: Failed to start xrdp daemon.
lines 1-10/10 (END)
i’ve 2 user, using user 1 open, if i using user 2 RDP can’t open..
please
if i install 18.04 it works immediatly,
if i install 20.04 it never works.
I tried many things
If i open Remote Desktop on the PC the login screen appears,
i log in to Xorg screen, the screen is light blue and the turns to black and 2 seconds later it disappear.
i get the same problem.
I install 18.04 and i can use Remotedesktop,
i install 20.04 on the same system it will not work at all…
Make sure that there is no user logged into the system before you use RDP.
This works, thanks!
Connecting from my win 10 laptop to a ubuntu 20.04 desktop on the sane wired network. Using cat6a, linksys router and netgear hub.
I always get:
“Connection Log
connecting to sesman ip 127.0.0.1 port 3350
sesman connect ok
sending login info to session manager, please wait …..
login failed for display 0”
I would love this to work so I can use the linux machine.
same here, I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong.
my solution was, to only use lower case characters for the user name.
Great thanks it worked using lower case user name
Same here, lower case issue. Now it works, thanks!!
Interestingly I get a black screen when the user is already logged in. It seems it can’t connect to an existing session (or create a new one). I first thought it was an issue with wayland (on Fedora I couldn’t use xrdp due to wayland, but when I disabled it, it did work), but in case of Ubuntu 20.04 it does work with wayland. When the user is not logged in, xrdp does work for me. When I’m signed in with xrdp, I can’t sign-in with the same user locally.
For those whose windows close within five seconds of opening a session on 20.04, try reducing the color depth in your Windows Remote Desktop Connection client. From the initial window: Show Options > Display > Colors = True Color (24-bit).
And while I’ve had no joy attaching to existing console sessions, if I close the RDP client without logging out, I get the Ubuntu Lock Screen when I reattach.
I run remote desktop from Windows 10 Pro to an Ubuntu 18.04.2 box and I have no problems connecting even if I am logged on to the Ubuntu box. The Ubuntu machine has the gnome desktop installed and I use xfce as my desktop over RDP. As it all works fine, I am extremely wary of upgrading to 20.04.1. Reading the comments here means I will be staying put on 18.04.2 for some time still. Life is too short to be fire fighting RDP connection issues.
I also had no issues with 18.04. 20.04 is an unmitigated disaster numerous fixes and nothing connects either vnc or rdp
Confimed not working. Ubuntu 20.04 installs all OK – starts logon window but when you enter the cridentials scren flashes and connection seems to be refused. Need 20.04 resolution here.
After carefully reading the logs, I came across a strange ipv4/ipv6 issue.
For some reason, the communication between xrdp and sesman was not possible with ipv6 disabled on the loopback interface. When using the address 127.0.0.1, xrdp connected to the ipv6 Link-Local Unicast addresses (like fe80::something) of the eno1 interface (my primary lan network adapter) and got a connection reject. Hence no functional RDP session.
Only after enabling ipv6 on the loopback interface with
sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=0
the xrdp to sesman connection could be established and xrdp was working.
I tried this, but kept getting errors about commands not found, and — “w” not being right.
ended up having to write “systemctl” and not sysctl, but the “w” being unable is what i’m stumped with.
Any remedy to this?
The actual screen it gets stuck on is:
Connecting to sesman ip 127.0.0.1 port 3350
sesman connect ok
sending login info to session manager, please wait…
login failed for display 0
Please note I have a reaspberry pi running raspbian I am able to remote into no problem.
Ill been struggling with this for 6 hours today, and finally now it works!
I need to allow ipv6 on lo in the future 🙂 Thanks!
Hi,
Logon with lower caps letters worked well, but when trying to access the attached USB soundcard, the system doesn’t have one.
I want to start a program on the remote machine, analyzing audiosignals and just want to sneak a peek, if there’s some signal.
Any idea, how i can access to the remote PC and start the application which analyses the audio?!
Although the connection is working for me but the problem I am having is to keep entering the 23 characters password everytime I try to connect. the password requirement is on XRDP and I don’t know why Windows RDP app isn’t sending the credentials automatically. Does anybody know of the reason?
I have a Oracle Cloud before where it was connecting automatically because the IP and the password were stored in Windows RDP app but Oracle terminated my that account so I created a new account using a new credit card and so the problem arose. I want to sort this out to make my life easier because the password I use is quite complex.