Enabling Remote Desktop

Enabling Remote Desktop Protocol on Ubuntu Desktop VPS.

Once your VPS with Ubuntu Desktop is provisioned and ready for you, navigate to the "Overview" section for the service.

Select the "Console" button.

Figure 1: Overview section of purchased VPS service.

This should direct you to the login prompt of the Ubuntu Desktop VPS environment. Enter the credentials listed in the "Overview" section from figure 1 above.

Figure 2: Login menu for Ubuntu Desktop.

The console does not support clipboard "copy/paste" you will need to manually type the password in. This is annoying, however but the console should only be used for initial setup and regaining access quickly in the event you mess up the VPS environment.

Once you are authenticated over the console session, navigate to the "System -> Settings" menu.

Figure 3: Navigating to the "System -> Settings" menu in Ubuntu Desktop.

Then select the "Remote Desktop" settings option.

Figure 4: System Settings menu.

If you are prompted for a password, use the password used to authenticate originally in Figure 2. If for some reason that does not work, use the password "V1b3s" (without the double quotes). For some reason some VPS templates are not updating the keyring password with the one provisioned for the account. We are working on fixing this.

Select the "Remote Login" tab option at the top and then "Unlock" afterwards. You will be prompted for your password again after selecting the "Unlock" button.

Figure 5: Accessing and enabling the "Remote Desktop" service on Ubuntu Desktop.

After that, you will need to enable "Remote Login" and specify credentials to connect. I recommend just reusing the credentials provisioned with your VPS, however you can set it to whatever you want. Please choose something secure!

Figure 6: Enabling Remote Login and setting connection credentials.

Lastly, you will need to add a firewall rule in your cloud portal in order to reach it remotely. Please, please, please only allow it from your own IP. I cannot emphasize this enough. Opening up an allow all rule for all IPs on the internet for RDP is incredibly insecure.

If you need to obtain your own IP address to whitelist then you can open the following link below and copy the IPV4 address listed there.

What Is My IP Address? IP Address Tools and MoreWhatIsMyIPAddress

Figure 7: Web service that will display your current IPv4 address.

The easiest way to open up a firewall rule for yourself to access the Remote Desktop is to do so in the cloud services portal, under the firewall section for your VPS service.

Figure 8: Firewall "Rules" menu in the SVS cloud portal.

You will want to use the "RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)" macro option and then enter your IPV4 address you obtained from figure 7 above into the "Source" section.

Figure 9: Allowing a RDP firewall inbound rule with example source IP address used.

Once you hit "Submit" the firewall rule should take affect within 5-10 seconds.

You can then use whatever RDP tool you like to connect using the IP address listed in the "Overview" section and the credentials specified in figure 6 above. I recommend the built in Microsoft Windows RDP tool when connecting from Windows or Remmina if connecting from Linux.

Once you successfully connect using those credentials you made, you will still have to use the credentials provisioned with the VPS to actually login after connecting.

Following this guide will give you a much smoother remote desktop experience when interacting with your VPS over a GUI front-end. This includes useful features such as copy/paste.