KaliLinux 2018.2: Connect to GNOME desktop environment via XRDP

This article will describe connecting to GNOME desktop environment via XRDP.

1 Install XRDP

Install xrdp package.

#!/bin/sh -e


# Install XRDP.
sudo apt install -y xrdp
sudo sed -e 's/^new_cursors=true/new_cursors=false/g' \
     -i /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini
sudo systemctl enable xrdp
sudo systemctl restart xrdp

# Disable authentication required dialog for color-manager.
cat <<EOF | \
  sudo tee /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/xrdp-color-manager.pkla
[Netowrkmanager]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-device
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes
EOF
sudo systemctl restart polkit

2 Connect to GNOME desktop environment via XRDP

Use Xorg as a session type. Windows Remote Desktop Connection is as the following.

0001_xrdp-gnome.png

2.1 rdesktop client with clipboard makes nautilus hang

There is no problem when using Windows Remote Desktop Connection or Remmina.

But rdesktop has a problem. If using rdesktop with enabling clipboard, nautilus on XRDP server will be hang (CPU usage will be high).

So if using rdesktop, please disable clipboard with "-r clipboard:off".

$ rdesktop -r clipboard:off XRDPSERVER