How to enable RDP connection on Ubuntu Desktop

This guide allows you to enable RDP on a Ubuntu Desktop server, however since RDP is not optimized for Linux we recommend using a VNC service instead if you need smoothness.

After installing Ubuntu Desktop, you can activate an RDP service to connect to your Ubuntu Desktop server via the Remote Desktop Connection software on Windows or Microsoft Remote Desktop on Linux and MacOS.

Our guide is based on Ubuntu 20.04

If you have not installed Ubuntu Desktop, you can follow our guide.

Connect in SSH to your VPS server
Install the xrdp package:

sudo apt install xrdp -y

Add the user xrdp to the ssl-certs group so that he can access the file /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key:

sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert

Restart the xrdp service to take these changes into account:

sudo systemctl restart xrdp

Login to the VPS IP from the Remote Desktop Connection software on Windows or Microsoft Remote Desktop on Linux and MacOS with the username and password of your VPS.
You have good access to the Ubuntu Desktop in RDP

On high resolutions XRDP can be particularly slow, we recommend setting a lower resolution on your RDP connection software if necessary.

Although RDP easily allows remote access to your VPS server, it is not fully optimized for a Linux system.

Updated on: 17/10/2022