Ubuntu Remote Desktop - 18.04 Bionic Beaver Linux

Objective

The following tutorial will explain how to setup client/server remote desktop sharing on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver.

Operating System and Software Versions

• Operating System: - Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

Requirements

Privileged access to your Ubuntu System as root or via sudo command is required.

Conventions

• # - requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
• $ - requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Other Versions of this Tutorial

Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)

Instructions

Enable Remote Desktop Sharing

To begin, we first need to make sure that remote desktop sharing is installed on the target Ubuntu system:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y vino

Next, step is to enable remote sharing: Once the Ubuntu's remote desktop feature is enabled you can optionally confirm that your system is now listening on the port 5900.

Open up terminal and enter:

$ ss -lnt
State       Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port               Peer Address:Port
LISTEN      0      128       0.0.0.0:22                    0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN      0      5       127.0.0.1:631                   0.0.0.0:* 
LISTEN      0      128     127.0.0.1:6010                  0.0.0.0:* 
LISTEN      0      128       0.0.0.0:38299                 0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN      0      5         0.0.0.0:5900                  0.0.0.0:* 
LISTEN      0      128          [::]:22                       [::]:* 
LISTEN      0      5           [::1]:631                      [::]:* 
LISTEN      0      128         [::1]:6010                     [::]:* 
LISTEN      0      128          [::]:39717                    [::]:* 
LISTEN      0      5            [::]:5900                     [::]:*

In case you have the UFW firewall enabled, open the port 5900 for incoming connections:

$ sudo ufw allow from any to any port 5900 proto tcp
Rule added
Rule added (v6)

If you wish to make your firewall rules more strict visit our How to Open/Allow incoming firewall port guide for more information.

Establish Remote Desktop Connection

At this stage we are ready to turn our attention to a client system from which we will be establishing connection to a remote Ubuntu desktop.

Remina Desktop Client

The first remote desktop client we are going to use to create a remote desktop connection is Remmina.

Remmina remote desktop client should already be installed on your Ubuntu 18.04 system. In case you need to install it execute:

$ sudo apt install remmina

Use the activities menu to search and start the Remmina remote desktop client or run the command:

$ remmina

VNC Remote Desktop Client

Yet, another alternative to connect to a Ubuntu remote desktop sharing is by use of VNC client. First, install VNC on your client Ubuntu system:

$ sudo apt install tigervnc-viewer

Unlike the above Remina remote client the VNC client does not support encryption. Any attempt to connect to a Remote desktop sharing server will result in No matching security types error. From this reason we first need to disable encryption on remote Vino desktop sharing server. Execute the following linux command to disable the remote server to require an encryption for connecting VNC clients:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false

Confirm that the encryption on your remote server is disabled:

$ gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.Vino | grep encrypt
org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false

Given that the encryption is now disabled, to add some level of privacy you may optionally first create SSH tunnel to your remote desktop for your VNC client on port 5900 before making VNC connection.

We should now be able to connect to a remote desktop using vncviewer command:

$ vncviewer ubuntu-remote-desktop