Hello World,

In our previous post, we have seen how you could install and configure xrdp package.  xrdp package make it possible to perform a remote desktop connection against an Ubuntu machine.  However, since the release of ubuntu 12.10, when performing the remote desktop connection, you will not be able to use the Unity Desktop environment.  Indeed, xrdp does not work with this desktop solution.  In Ubuntu 12.04, it was possible to fallback to Unity 2D but this desktop interface has been removed from the lastest ubuntu release.

You can still perform a remote desktop connection using the xrpd package. However, you will need to configure an alternate desktop in order to have a useable remote session.   This can be seen as an important limitation as your users will have to use different desktop interfaces based on the way to connect to the ubuntu computer (locally or remotely)

The topic of this post is to show you how you can customize a little bit the xrdp experience…. I really think that the look’n feel of a product helps user adopting a solution or not.  While xrdp is providing effective rdp connections, the fact that you  see the black screen when performing the connection is not really appealing…

In this post, we will show you how you can perform a basic customization of the xrdp login “interface”. In order to to customize the look’n feel of xrdp, you will need to install xrdp packages from sources.  The current ubuntu packages does not offer you this capability.  In part I, we will describe how to perform a manual installation of the xrdp packages (using the xrdp source pacakges).  In part II, we will show how you can automate the installation. Finally, part III will show you what you can customize (not much but still better than nothing : – ) )

Installing xrdp from source (and not ubuntu packages)

Let’s try to perform a manual installation by using the xrdp source packages

Preparing your manual installation

In order to be able to compile the xrdp package from source, you will need to download some additional packages that will be used by the compilation script.

Step 1 – Install additional packages (needed in order to install xrdp from the source packages). From a command prompt, type the following command

• sudo apt-get install autoconf libtool libpam0g-dev libx11-dev libxfixes-dev libssl-dev  

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Step 2 – Install the gnome-fallback desktop interface by typing the following command at the terminal window

• sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback 

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Step 3 – configure the xrdp in order to use the gnome-session-fallback as default desktop environment when performing a remote desktop connection. To do this, you will simply create a file called .xsession in your home folder.  We will again use a command line in order to perform this operation

• echo  “gnome-session – -session=gnome-fallback” > ~/.xsession

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Step 4–  Instead of using vnc4server packages, we will be replacing this one with the X11vnc server package.  apparently, this package provides a little better performance when dealing with remote desktop connection.  To install the x11VNC server, you can use the command line or the ubuntu software center. We will use the command line

• sudo apt-get install x11vnc

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Note : at time of writing, this was version 0.6

Step 7 – Go to the location where the package has been downloaded (in my case /home/griffon/Downloads) and extract the content of the archive by right-clicking the package and selecting extract here

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At this stage, we have prepared all the necessary steps in order to perform a succesful installation of xrdp source packages…   So, let’s proceed….

Installing the xrpd package on your system.

It’s time to install the xrdp from the source package. If you browse to the location where you have extracted the xrdp package, you will see that the instructions to install xrdp package are described in the file called readme.txt.  (Do not take into account the instructions found in the file install.txt). To build and configure your custom xrdp installation, perform the following tasks :

Step 1 – From a command line, browse to the location where the xrdp package has been extracted (in my case /home/griffon/Downloads)

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Step 2 – Run the following command and wait for completion

• sudo ./bootstrap

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• sudo ./configure

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Step 4 – Run the following command and wait for completion

•  sudo make

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Step 5 – Run the following command and wait for completion

• sudo make install

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Now, it’s time to configure our ubuntu machine to use xrdp in the most appropriate way….

Configure xrdp  & set the service to start automatically

We have installed the xrdp package from souce. However, we still need to configure the service to start automatically when the computer boots or reboots.  Because we want to reuse the startup scripts created by Ubuntu team, we will install/remove the official xrdp software package that you will find in the ubuntu repository (the current version is 0.5). This will pre-configure our computer to use xrdp software package.

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Step 5 – As a final step, you will need to update the /etc/init.d/xrdp configuration file.  Indeed, we have performed a default installation of xrdp source packages which store files in some other locations than the one used by the xrpd Ubuntu package.  Hereafter, you can see the content of my “custom” /etc/init.d/xrdp file. Simply copy the conten of the modified xrdp script file into your /etc/init.d/xrdp file and you should be good to go .

<-------   Begin of the Script -------->

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# start/stop xrdp and sesman daemons
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          xrdp
# Required-Start:    $network $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $network $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start xrdp and sesman daemons
# Description:       XRDP uses the Remote Desktop Protocol to present a
#                    graphical login to a remote client allowing connection
#                    to a VNC server or another RDP server.
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/sbin/xrdp
PIDDIR=/var/run
SESMAN_START=yes
USERID=xrdp
RSAKEYS=/etc/xrdp/rsakeys.ini
NAME=xrdp
DESC="Remote Desktop Protocol server"

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

check_root()  {
    if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]; then
        log_failure_msg "You must be root to start, stop or restart $NAME."
        exit 4
    fi
}

if [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]; then
   . /etc/default/$NAME
fi

# Tasks that can only be run as root
if [ "$(id -u)" = "0" ]; then
    # Check for pid dir
    if [ ! -d $PIDDIR ] ; then
        mkdir $PIDDIR
    fi
    chown $USERID:$USERID $PIDDIR

    # Check for rsa key 
    if [ ! -f $RSAKEYS ] || cmp $RSAKEYS /usr/share/doc/xrdp/rsakeys.ini > /dev/null; then
        log_action_begin_msg "Generating xrdp RSA keys..."
        (umask 077 ; xrdp-keygen xrdp $RSAKEYS)
        chown $USERID:$USERID $RSAKEYS
        if [ ! -f $RSAKEYS ] ; then
            log_action_end_msg 1 "could not create $RSAKEYS"
            exit 1
        fi
        log_action_end_msg 0 "done"
    fi
fi

case "$1" in
  start)
        check_root
        exitval=0
        log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC " 
        if pidofproc -p $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid $DAEMON > /dev/null; then
            log_progress_msg "$NAME apparently already running"
            log_end_msg 0
            exit 0
        fi
        log_progress_msg $NAME
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo  --pidfile $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid \
	    --chuid $USERID:$USERID --exec $DAEMON
        exitval=$?
	if [ "$SESMAN_START" = "yes" ] ; then
            log_progress_msg "sesman"
            start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid \
	       --exec /usr/local/sbin/xrdp-sesman
            value=$?
            [ $value -gt 0 ] && exitval=$value
        fi
        # Make pidfile readables for all users (for status to work)
        [ -e $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid ] && chmod 0644 $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid
        [ -e $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid ] && chmod 0644 $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid
        # Note: Unfortunately, xrdp currently takes too long to create
        # the pidffile unless properly patched
        log_end_msg $exitval
	;;
  stop)
        check_root
	[ -n "$XRDP_UPGRADE" -a "$RESTART_ON_UPGRADE" = "no" ] && {
	    echo "Upgrade in progress, no restart of xrdp."
	    exit 0
	}
        exitval=0
        log_daemon_msg "Stopping RDP Session manager " 
        log_progress_msg "sesman"
        if pidofproc -p  $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid /usr/local/sbin/xrdp-sesman  > /dev/null; then
            start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid \
                --chuid $USERID:$USERID --exec /usr/local/sbin/xrdp-sesman
            exitval=$?
        else
            log_progress_msg "apparently not running"
        fi
        log_progress_msg $NAME
        if pidofproc -p  $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid $DAEMON  > /dev/null; then
            start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid \
	    --exec $DAEMON
            value=$?
            [ $value -gt 0 ] && exitval=$value
        else
            log_progress_msg "apparently not running"
        fi
        log_end_msg $exitval
	;;
  restart|force-reload)
        check_root
	$0 stop
        # Wait for things to settle down
        sleep 1
	$0 start
	;;
  reload)
        log_warning_msg "Reloading $NAME daemon: not implemented, as the daemon"
        log_warning_msg "cannot re-read the config file (use restart)."
        ;;
  status)
        exitval=0
        log_daemon_msg "Checking status of $DESC" "$NAME"
        if pidofproc -p  $PIDDIR/$NAME.pid $DAEMON  > /dev/null; then
            log_progress_msg "running"
            log_end_msg 0
        else
            log_progress_msg "apparently not running"
            log_end_msg 1 || true
            exitval=1
        fi
	if [ "$SESMAN_START" = "yes" ] ; then
            log_daemon_msg "Checking status of RDP Session Manager" "sesman"
            if pidofproc -p  $PIDDIR/xrdp-sesman.pid /usr/local/sbin/xrdp-sesman  > /dev/null; then
                log_progress_msg "running"
                log_end_msg 0
            else
                log_progress_msg "apparently not running"
                log_end_msg 1 || true
                exitval=1
            fi
        fi
        exit $exitval
        ;;
  *)
	N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
	echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
	exit 1
	;;
esac

exit 0

<-------   End of the Script -------->

Step 6 –  you will need to restart the xrdp service in order to apply all the changes you have made.  To restart the service, you can simply type the following command

• sudo service xrdp restart 

Step 7 –  From now on, you should be able to perform a remote desktop connection to your ubuntu machine. You can restart the ubuntu machine and try your remote desktop connection again. If everything is configured correctly, you will have access to your desktop interface via the remote desktop.

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Final notes

And voila ! We did it !

In this post, I focused mainly on the installation of the xrdp package using the source files and not the package provided by Ubuntu.  You have noticed also that I’ve preferred to use command line instead of the ubuntu software center.  You could gather all the commands into one file and have a basic installation script.  There are probably other ways (even better way) to perform manual installation of xrdp than the one I’ve described.  In order to be able to customize the xrdp login screen, I need to have the files from the xrdp source packages…

I’ll be working in part II of this serie.  The part II will show you how to use a nice little script to fully automate the installation of xrdp. So, you would be able to choose which method better suit your needs.  Finally, the part III will simply show the little customization thing that you can do….

Till next time

See ya

References:

• http://scarygliders.net/2011/11/17/x11rdp-ubuntu-11-10-gnome-3-xrdp-customization-new-hotness/  provided me the necessary information in order to have xrdp interacting with X11VNC….

Note :  If you would like to read part I from III of this post series, have a look at

• How to customize xrdp install & login screen on Ubuntu 12.10 – Part I
• How to customize xrdp install & login screen on Ubuntu 12.10 – Part II
• How to customize xrdp install & login screen on Ubuntu 12.10 – Part III