Recent releases of xrdp package introduces support for H264 encoding/decoding protocol.  In this version of the script, there is a new switch parameter that can be used and that will allow you to take advantage of the H264 protocol.

   

In the previous version of the script, we were using only the package openh264.  There is another package that can be used and supported by xrdp which is x264.  This release of the script includes support for x264 package as well.  

In one of our previous post (xRDP – Run xrdp daemon under unprivileged account), we have explained how to configure your system to run xrdp daemon using non-root account.  By default, when you build and install xrdp software package, the daemon process will be running under root account.  However, to improve security,  it is possible to change this behavior and have the xrdp and xrdp-sesman daemons running under a non-privilege account. 

 

This version of the script include the code to make this happens by default. Using version 1.5.5., xrdp daemon will run with unprivileged account.    Again, we have not fully tested the code but seems to work on most of the cases….  

 

How to Use the Script

The xrdp-installer-1.5.5 script will work in a similar way as the previous versions. The following section will explain how to download, extract, set executable mode and perform the installation using the script.  The script provides some switches that can be used to customize the installation process.  

So, let’s see how this would be working…. 

Disclaimer

To download the script, you have multiple options.   You can from a Terminal issue the following command 

wget https://www.c-nergy.be/downloads/xRDP/xrdp-installer-1.5.5.zip

You can also simply use your browser and click on the link to download the script :  

•   xrdp-installer-1.5.5.zip 

Step 2 – unzip the file 

After downloading the zip package containing the file, you will need to unzip it first. To unzip the package, you can use the Terminal console and issue the following command 

unzip xrdp-installer-1.5.5.zip 

You can also use the GUI and the Nautilus file manager to select the downloaded package, right-click on it and select the option Extract Here

Step 2 – Set Execute Right on the script

Download the xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh script to your system, extract content and mark it as executable . To do this, perform the following action in a terminal console

chmod +x  ~/Downloads/xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh

Note : Adjust the path where the xrdp-Installer-1.5.5.sh script to reflect your environment

Step 2 – Run as normal user 

The script needs to be run as a normal user.  The script will start running and will prompt you for password when sudo actions are initiated.  If you run the script as root or using sudo command, the Download folder does not exist for the root user and the script fails to run as expected.   To overcome this situation, the script also check which user is executing the script. If the script is run under sudo or root accounts, a warning message will be displayed and the script will not execute

Step 3 – Switches and parameters 

The xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh script can be executed as is (with no parameters or switches). This will perform a standard (and basic) installation of xRDP.  No sound or custom xrdp login script will be made available.  However, remote desktop, drive redirection and clipboard redirection would be available with this installation mode.  

The xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh script accept also some additional parameters that will help customize the xrdp installation and enable additional features.  The script provides the following parameters 

--help or -h          => will display a basic help menu
--sound or -s         => will enable sound redirection 
--loginscreen or -l   => will customize the xRDP login screen 
--remove or -r        => will remove the xrdp package 
--custom or -c        => will perform a custom installation (i.e. compiled from sources)
--dev or -d           => will perform a custom installation using dev branch (unstable version)
--unsupported or -u   => will bypass the Check os and will run against unsupported os (use it at your own risk!!)
--perm or -p          => fix permissions on xrdp files (uncommon situation)
--encoding or -e      => to add H.264 & x264 protocol based on the openH264 package

Step 4 – Perform xRDP installation using the script 

The following sections will provide some examples and scenario on how you can use the script….. 

Standard Installation – No Parameter

As mentioned above, you can decide to use the default xrdp package available in the Ubuntu repository and perform a basic installation which will provide you remote desktop capability and will also customize the remote sesssion.  The script will ensure that the same look n’ feel will be maintained when the user logs on locally or remotely. 

To perform a standard installation, you execute the script with no parameters.  Open a Terminal console, browse to the location where the script has been downloaded and issue the following command 

 ./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh

When the xrdp installation package will start, you be requested to enter your password. Provide the password and proceed with the installation. Wait for completion of the script.  The machine will not reboot automatically when done so you can review the actions performed by the script….

Standard Installation with Parameters

The script can be used to perform a standard installation and still passes some parameters to get the most of the xRDP packages and their features.  For all the Ubuntu versions, we could use the following combination of parameters 

./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -s      (this would enable the sound redirection) 
./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -l      (this would customize the xrdp login screen -see here)

Obviously, you can combine the switches (any order) to have more features enabled  

./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -s -l      (this would enable the sound redirection and customize the xrdp login screen)

Important Notes

The script can be run multiple times on the same machine.  If you have run initially the script with no parameters but you decide afterward to enable additional features, the script can be re-executed and the additional features will be enabled.  

Custom Installation – Default Installation 

Custom installation script is really flexible. Custom installation means that the script will compile the xrdp package from the source binaries. The custom installation script always uses the latest xrdp package version available 

To perform a custom installation, you will need at minimum to pass one parameter.  The following command line shows you how to perform a custom installation  

./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c     (this would perform a custom installation but will not enabled adv features like sound redirection or custom login screen)

Custom Installation – Additional Options  

If a user wants to enable additional features, you will pass some additional parameters as shown in the following examples 

./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c -s     (this would perform a custom install and enable sound redirection)
./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c -l     (this would perform a custom install and customize xrdp login screen)
./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c -l -s  (this would perform a custom install, enable sound and customize login screen)
./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c -d     (this would perform a custom install, using unstable/dev version of xrdp packages -xrdp 0.10.80)
./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -c -l -s -e (this would perform a custom install, enable sound and customize login screen, add h264 support)

Important Notes

The script can be run multiple times on the same machine.  If you have run initially the script with no parameters but you decide afterward to enable additional features, the script can be re-executed and the additional features will be enabled.  

Remove Installation option

This version of the script also ship with the option to remove xRDP package.  The removal option should be only used  if you have uses this version of this script to perform the installation.  To remove the xrdp package, you would simply execute the following command  

./xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -r     (to remove the xrdp packages)

Step 5 – Test your configuration 

After the script has run and after the reboot/shutdown and start process, it’s time to test and see if you can indeed perform a smooth remote connection to your Ubuntu machine.  Start your favorite rdp client and simply enter your credentials and start testing your installation.  If everything is ok, you will see a similar Desktop interface where Gnome Desktop is used and the Dock is visible. 

Limitations

Switch between standard and Custom install

This version of the script can be run multiple times on the same machine.  However, because of this new behavior, you cannot perform a standard installation and then decide to perform the custom installation.  Once you have selected your installation mode, you will have to stick to it.  This is kind of checked by the script.  

So, if you have performed a standard installation but afterwards you might want to use the custom installation option, the script will ignore the request.  If you want to move from standard install mode to custom mode (or vice versa), the correct process is 

• remove xrdp (using the xrdp-installer-1.5.5.sh -r option) 
• Reboot
• perform a new installation using your selected installation mode (standard or custom install mode) 
• Reboot

Known issues, Fixed Issues and limitations, New Behavior 

Known Issues 

Black Screen or disconnected immediately after connecting

As mentioned and explained multiple times,  this situation will happen (or can happen) when the same user account is used concurrently locally and remotely.  In other words,  the problem is related to the fact that the same user account is already logged in locally and a remote connection is attempted at the same time.  With xRDP software solution, a specific user account can be logged on either locally or remotely but not both….  

Ubuntu 24.04 seems to have introduced a small change when such situation would happen.  If the user is remotely logged on via xRDP software and if the same user tries to login locally, he will be presented with the following popup (see screenshot) 

Click on Picture for better Resolution

The only problem is that if you click Force Stop button, it seems not to work.  The remote session is not killed.  We have not tried this on older Ubuntu releases but I think this is because of the gnome-remote-login addition in Gnome 46.  

If a user is logged on locally and if the same user tries to perform a remote connection to the machine, the user will get informed about an existing session already running as shown in the screenshot below

Click on Picture for better Resolution

Again, here there is no way to stop the existing session.  You will need to logout locally from the session or you will need to find other ways (such as ssh or another user account) that can be used to disconnect the existing session.

 

Final Notes

This is it for this post !   

The script version has not been tested extensively but it should work in most cases.  The script should be seen as a interim release version.  We might release a new version in the coming weeks since xrdp project is evolving fast and we want to add some new features or improved functionalities…We hope that Wayland support will be provided soon 

Please if you have time or want to help us in creating the best xRDP installer script, download the script, test it and provide constructive feedback.  If you find a bug or an issue with the script, let us know as well so we can try to fix it.   

Till next time 

See ya