Can I access Ubuntu from Windows remotely?

Question

I have Ubuntu installed on my work computer. I am wondering whether I could have access to it from another computer with Windows installed. If so, could you give a step by step guide?

Solution 1

Yes, you can access Ubuntu from Windows remotely.

Taken from this article.

Follow these steps :

Step 1 – Install xRDP

Open Terminal (Crtl+Alt+T) and execute the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xrdp

Step 2 – Install XFCE4 ( Unity doesn't seem to support xRDP in Ubuntu 14.04; although, in Ubuntu 12.04 it was supported ). That's why we install Xfce4.

sudo apt-get install xfce4

Step 3 – Configure xRDP

In this step, we modify two files to make sure xRDP uses Xfce4. First we need to create, or edit, our .xsession file in our home directory. We can either use nano or simply redirect an echo statement (easier):

echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession

The second file we need to edit is the startup file for xRDP, so it will start Xfce4.

sudo nano /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh

The content should look like this (pay attention to the last line and ignore . /etc/X11/Xsession):

#!/bin/sh

if [ -r /etc/default/locale ]; then
  . /etc/default/locale
  export LANG LANGUAGE
fi

startxfce4

Step 4 – Restart xRDP

To make all these changes effective, restart xRDP as such:

sudo service xrdp restart

Testing your xRDP connection

On the computer that will remotely control your Ubuntu machine, start you RDP client. Windows comes standard with a Remote Desktop client (mstsc.exe – you can start it from a command prompt, or find the shortcut to Remote Desktop under Accessories). Or Search 'remote' in start (Windows 7) Or 'remote' in search box in Windows 8.

Whichever client you use, most will work with either the computer network name or IP address of your Ubuntu machine.

To find the IP address on your Ubuntu box, type:

hostname -I

(note: this is a capital “i”)

Enter IP address of your Ubuntu machine. For example:

Depending on your RDP client capabilities and settings (for example: Microsoft RDP Client allows automatic login), you might or might not see the login screen. Here we enter our Ubuntu username and password and click “OK”

You are done,enjoy

PS: There are some good points mentioned in comments, so I thought to sum them up.

• If you want to access Ubuntu from outside network, you'll need your Ubuntu at work to have it's own, proper, internet IP address - a fairly unlikely scenario. To work it otherwise, you need the externally visible address of work, AND have port forwarding set to direct incoming RDP requests to your work computer on the router. (Mark Williams)

• To use the Ubuntu MATE desktop meta-session, replace last line startxfce4 in startwm.sh with mate-session. (Frank N)

• You can use your actual machine name (by typing hostname) rather than your IP as it might be more stable on dynamic IPs in future sessions. (Frank N)

Solution 2

MobaXterm

http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

Freeware implementation the X server on Windows.

This method qequires minimal setup, and is very reliable.

You must first install the SSH server on Ubuntu e.g. by physically accessing a keyboard on the machine:

sudo apt install openssh-server

Then, on Windows within MobaXterm, you go:

• Sessions
• New session
• SSH

which gives you an SSH shell.

Now, if you start a program from that shell, e.g.:

sudo apt install x11-apps
xeyes

xeyes opens as a separate native Windows window.

One annoyance is that if you opened the window at work, and then you get home, you have to start a new instance of the app, and you can't see the already opened window. This is made further annoying by applications that work in single window mode, e.g. browsers: you will have to search for how to force a new instance, and then you will have two instances running.

Tested in Windows 10 and Ubuntu 19.10 on a local network with MobaXterm v12.4:

• xeyes 7.7: move pretty fast, but you have to be hovering the window itself
• Firefox 74.0: page scrolls were pretty sluggish nearing unsability, I would not be a happy user
• Eclipse 2020-03: works surprisingly well, I can see a bit of lag, but pretty small, even when scrolling, and trying to watch a video on YouTube makes it unresponsive
• Chromium 79: can't open it, error message: "MoTTY X11 proxy: Unsupported authorisation protocol" asked at: https://superuser.com/questions/1111900/how-to-fix-mobaxterm-x11-proxy-unsupported-authorisation-protocol

Here is a Windows screenshot showing MobaXterm running on top left, and two program (xeyes and firefox) running on the Ubuntu remote but showing as separate native Windows windows!

MobaXterm X server alternatives

I haven't tried those yet, but behavior should be similar to MoabXterm? Hopefully we can find a good open source one then:

• Cygwin/X https://x.cygwin.com/ demo video: https://youtu.be/ENkOEknSLv4?t=105
• Xephyr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xephyr MIT licensed. I can't find out how to download a prebuilt in 5 minutes.
• Xming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xming another proprietary one

xrdp

Mentioned at: https://askubuntu.com/a/592544/52975

I just want to confirm that it does not work without touching some configuration files as mentioned in that answer from Windows 10 into Ubuntu 19.10, you just get a black screen in that case: Blank desktop when logging in via xrdp

Also RDP is a proprietary Microsoft protocol which is saddening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Protocol But it does appear to send only minimal information unlike VNC which sends images: https://superuser.com/questions/32495/whats-the-difference-between-rdp-vs-vnc

VNC

I've tried the following programs, but they were sending the desktop as video, which incurred unacceptable screen resolution loss / mouse inaccuracy / network bandwidth if you are offsite.

Servers (run on Ubuntu):

• Vino. Ships pre-installed, but there are compatibility issues with some available Windows clients: Gnome 3.10 sharing desktop --- how to configure the security type for VNC?

Clients (run on Windows):

• TigerVNC

PuTTY

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

The go-to solution if all you want is a text terminal via SSH.

First you have to install PuTTY on Windows, usually by downloading it from its website.

On Ubuntu, install the SSH server:

sudo apt install openssh-server

and then you just open PuTTY, tell it the Ubuntu IP and connect via SSH, and that gives you a terminal inside Ubuntu.

PuTTY is very convenient as it integrates both an xterm emulator and SSH / telnet and other protocols in a single package.

Then you also want to install and use tmux on Ubuntu and use tmux attach when connecting from Windows from within PuTTY as mentioned at https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/22781/how-to-recover-a-shell-after-a-disconnection, this way you can:

• use the exact same terminals on work and at home. Yes, terminal windows get updated in real time on both machines if you type anything in either! The magic of servers!
• not lose any sessions if the connection breaks

which is amazing!!! There are however some annoying glitches with environment variables, particularly DISPLAY: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/75681/why-do-i-have-to-re-set-env-vars-in-tmux-when-i-re-attach

You will also want to reduce the default huge default font size: Increase font size of putty

How to copy paste in PuTTY: https://superuser.com/questions/180043/how-do-i-paste-the-windows-clipboard-into-my-putty-session-using-only-the-keybo

Then, you can just open webpages you need directly on the native Windows browser. If all you need to get your work done is Vim and and a browser, PuTTY is definitely the way to go. The only thing I miss on my development day-to-day with this setup is Eclipse.

Solution 3

The best one I found is x2go.

Install on the linux machine http://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:installation:x2goserver

Install client on the windows machine: http://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/download:start

Tune compression if it feels slow: (TL;DR use 4k-png) https://uwaterloo.ca/science-computing/student-support/x2go-tutorial

Solution 4

Powershell on Windows has already delivered Windows SSH solution back in 2015 and you can just have a try.

View more solutions

Comments

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

You could ask your IT department whether or not secure shell is installed, then connect to your work computer using PuTTY

[Faizan Akram Dar]

Added an answer, give it a try

[Novice]

You can use any one of following. 1. PuTTY 2. VNC

[damien]

Is this work computer at work? Does your work allow remote connection? Firewalls?

[Mark Williams]

Odds are this will hit trouble, if the OP means from outside - your example uses a 192.168.1.* address, which is reserved for internal networks - it won't cross the internet. You'll need your Ubuntu box at work to have it's own, proper, internet IP address - a fairly unlikely scenario. To work it otherwise, you need the externally visible address of 'work', AND have port forwarding set to direct incoming RDP requests to your work computer on the router. OK if inside the network though

[Yuval]

I have an Ubuntu server and a Windows machine at home, and I'm trying to connect the latter to the former. I followed the instructions above, but after I log into xrdp, all I get is a dialog that says "Connecting to sesman ip 127.0.0.1 port 3350" with an 'OK' button, and nothing more. Any idea why?

[Faizan Akram Dar]

Is ubuntu server and windows on the same network? I mean are you connecting them locally or via internet? Add IP address of your sever on windows machine as shown above, if both systems are on the same local network then the address of the both would be something like 192.xxx.xxx.xxx . If you are connecting across internet then you need to add IP address of remote machine and allow port forwarding on your router, Search google for port forwarding

[Frank Nocke]

hint: To use the ubuntu MATE desktop meta-session, replace last line startxfce4 in startwm.sh with mate-session

[Frank Nocke]

using your actual machine name (by typing hostname) rather than your IP might be more stable on dynamic IPs in future sessions...

[Frank Nocke]

All else works great, but I am getting desperate on getting clipboard to work.. ➝ mankier.com/5/xrdp.ini#Channels ?!?

[Gaurav Arora]

I entered credentials to xRDP - it shows the connecting information. But screen came blank with 'X' cursor mark and suddenly it threw me out. Any clue?

[Faizan Akram Dar]

which version of ubuntu are u trying to access?

[Leo]

@GauravKumarArora you probably missed a step related to xfce4.

[Leo]

Anyone knows how to get clipboard and audio/sound to work? Also gnome-terminal is dysfunctional, although it can be used to call up xterm, which works fine.

[devprashant]

coppied from :tweaking4all.com/software/linux-software/…

[xinthose]

xrdp does not start on boot, so make sure a script runs this line on boot service xrdp start

[David Portabella]

i enter login and password, and then i get a blue screen with the mouse pointer and nothing else. any idea?

[Faizan Akram Dar]

@DavidPortabella which version of ubuntu and windows are you trying to connect

[David Portabella]

the last ubuntu xenial version. about windows, i use a RDP client from OSX, but this should not matter.

[Aung Thu Win]

This article explain the whole thing in very simple manner No need to install any additional apps makeuseof.com/tag/…

[David Portabella]

i managed to connect with vnc using this tutorial: digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/… but I get a totally different desktop manager.

[David Portabella]

ok, i managed to connect using the default sharing desktop, as tmkasun said. the problem is that i couldn't find the preferences. running the command "vino-preferences" showed the dialog box, and i could enable it.

[Jus12]

How does this work with Ubuntu 16.04?

[spunkpike]

Tip : Make sure sesman is running by typing /usr/sbin/xrdp-sesman. Otherwise you might get a blank screen with a big X on it.

[Michael Earls]

I had to reboot my computer to get this to work. Simply restarting the service did not work. I also had to use sesman-any and 127.0.0.1 as the ip address to get it to work from the RDP client.

[Carl S]

I know this is an old thread, so maybe info is out-of-date with Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS, but I get the same behavior as Yuval. Windows RDP appears to find host and connect just fine, and I get "Login to xrdp" dialog, where I enter my Ubuntu login info... But then just get "Connection Log" dialog, that says "connecting to sesman ip 127.0.0.1 port 3350". There is only an "OK" button, and clicking on that closes the connection entirely. Windows and Ubuntu machines are on the same internal network (home). I can ssh into the Ubuntu machine from the same Windows machine w/ PuTTY. Why?

[Superole]

@FrankNocke: will mate-session give you the current logged-in session of the target computer?

[Frank Nocke]

Sorry, don't know. And don't have my session settings handy right now... @super

[devinbost]

The first time I ever exposed a linux system to the internet for remote connectivity many years ago (though it was also a web server) without a hardware firewall, that machine was hacked in about two weeks. So be sure to not overlook security concerns.

[Faizan Akram Dar]

Downvoter, please care to elaborate why did u downvote ?

[Luke]

after install xfce sucessfully, when I run echo xfce4-session >~/.xsession it return this error: -bash: /home/longnx/.xsession: No such file or directory imgur.com/a/AcCuAOv What can I do? What keyword to search for help?

[Faizan Akram Dar]

@luke There is a space between > and ~, echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession . It should work, if it doesn't use nano nano ~/.xsession and copy contents of echo xfce4-session into it

[TheWanderer]

echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession doesn't the single > mean it'll completely overwrite ~/.xsession?

[Kunal B.]

Allow port 3389 sudo ufw allow 3389/tcp

[Chris P]

Thanks for the answer. Can you give us a little more details of how we can use noip.com so we can have a static name of linux machine? Thanks in advance, Chris Pappas

[user628388]

This worked on Xubuntu 14.04 and 16.04. It is failing for me on 18.04

[tanius]

Good one! Because it also supports on-demand desktop sharing / remote support (see).

[Callidus]

I had problems connecting on Ubuntu 18.04 - session would start and then quit immediately. This page was very helpful: github.com/neutrinolabs/xrdp/issues/1128

[jahajee.com]

While much easier than xrdp, this method is a bit resource incentive for Raspberry Pi with limited processor and RAM. But this was the easiest of all.