XRDP via SSH session

To make use of Windows Remote Desktop Client to connect to Graphical X session on Ubuntu Linux server, there are three basic components that would help make a secured connection:

XRDP server

SSH server

VNC server

XRDP protocol would be used to forward VNC session to Windows RDC. For security reason, it will be done through the data encapsulation by using SSH tunnel.

The benefit is that it doesn't require the client to install VNC viewer and use standard Remote Desktop Client on Windows computer.

For better security, Putty will be used to create SSH connection first and do the port forwarding as follows:

For example:

Port 5555 (client port, any other port than 3389 or 3390) => localhost:3389 (remote server port)

On the server, Firewall rules restrict that only SSH port is open to the users for connection. Through SSH session, we can connect it with Windows RDC by using URI like:

localhost:5555

Before all these happen, we need to make sure that SSH server, VNC server and XRDP server are installed  and configured properly on Linux server.

Use the following commands to install all required servers:

$ sudo apt-get install openssh
$ sudo apt-get install vnc4server
$ sudo apt-get install xrdp

Just skipped SSH and VNC setup whereas you could find lots of references on the other forums.

For XRDP, we need to make a little adjustment on the file "/etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini" .

Depending on the setup of vnc4server, you need to define the VNC port to be forward by XRDP protocol. Under the section "xrdp1" in the file "xrdp.ini", please comment out the line of "port=-1" and add a working VNC port for use, i.e., port=5901.

[globals]
bitmap_cache=yes
bitmap_compression=yes
port=3389
crypt_level=low
channel_code=1

[xrdp1]
name=sesman-Xvnc
lib=libvnc.so
username=ask
password=ask
ip=127.0.0.1
#port=-1
port=5901

Then restart XRDP service:

$ sudo service xrdp restart

Now, it's time to test from the client side by initiating SSH connection using Putty client.

Then open Remote Desktop Client on Windows comptuer with the URI:

localhost: 5555

You should a GUI login screen for xrdp session. Using linux username and password, you can login to VNC session like what a VNC viewer normally does.

Enjoy your RDC!