Installing Xfce GUI and XRDP Remote Desktop on a server running Ubuntu 18.04

Xfce is a free desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems such as GNU/Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris and others. It provides a lightweight and modular interface based on the GTK 3 library.

Step-by-step instructions

Installing Xfce GUI and XRDP remote desktop on a server running Ubuntu 18.04 operating system involves several steps.

Step 1: System Upgrade

Connect to your server via SSH.

Update the package list and install the updates.

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: install Xfce

Install the Xfce workspace.

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies -y

Step 3: Install XRDP

Install XRDP.

sudo apt install xrdp -y

Run and configure XRDP to start automatically at system boot.

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

sudo systemctl start xrdp

Step 4: Configure XRDP to use Xfce

Define Xfce as the default working environment for XRDP. To do this, create and edit the .xsession file in your user's home directory.

echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession

Restart the XRDP service.

sudo systemctl restart xrdp

Step 5: Configure the firewall

If you have a UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) installed, open port 3389, which is used by XRDP.

sudo ufw allow 3389/tcp

Check the status of the UFW to make sure the port is open.

sudo ufw status

Step 6: Connect to the server

1. Use a remote desktop client (such as Remote Desktop Connection on Windows) to connect to your server.
2. Enter the IP address of your server and connect.
3. Enter your Ubuntu credentials.

After completing these steps, you should be able to connect to your server using XRDP and use the Xfce desktop environment.