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Use XRDP to connect to your Linux Server

XRDP is a free and open source remote desktop protocol (RDP) server for Linux. It is a fully featured, multi-user, multi-desktop server that can be used for remote access to a Windows or Mac desktop.

xrdp - an open source RDP server

xrdp provides a graphical login to remote machines using Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). xrdp accepts connections from a variety of RDP clients:

  • FreeRDP
  • rdesktop
  • KRDC
  • NeutrinoRDP
  • Windows MSTSC (Microsoft Terminal Services Client, aka mstsc.exe)
  • Microsoft Remote Desktop (found on Microsoft Store, which is distinct from MSTSC)

Many of these work on some or all of Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and/or Android.

RDP transport is encrypted using TLS by default.

Features

Remote Desktop Access

  • Connect to a Linux desktop using RDP from anywhere (requires Xorg module)
  • Reconnect to an existing session
  • Session resizing (both on-connect and on-the-fly)
  • RDP/VNC proxy (connect to another RDP/VNC server via xrdp)

Access to Remote Resources

  • Two-way clipboard transfer (text, bitmap, file)
  • Audio redirection
  • Microphone redirection
  • Drive redirection (mount local client drives on remote machine)

Supported Platforms

xrdp primarily targets GNU/Linux operating system. x86 (including x86-64) and ARM processors are most mature architecture to run xrdp on. See also Platform Support Tier.

Some components such as xorgxrdp and RemoteFX codec have special optimization for x86 using SIMD instructions. So running xrdp on x86 processors will get fully accelerated experience.

Quick Start

Most Linux distributions should distribute the latest release of xrdp in their repository. You would need xrdp and xorgxrdp packages for the best experience. It is recommended that xrdp depends on xorgxrdp, so it should be sufficient to install xrdp. If xorgxrdp is not provided, use Xvnc server.

xrdp listens on 3389/tcp. Make sure your firewall accepts connection to 3389/tcp from where you want to access.

Ubuntu / Debian

apt install xrdp