Ex-iT's Notes

Ex-iT's Notes

xRDP Setup and Configuration

xRDP Setup and Configuration

I always struggle with setting up xRDP properly, I always forget how to configure the Polkit rules properly to not get all the annoying password popups and getting the default theme to work.

Installing xRDP

The installation process is really straight forward.

bash
sudo apt install xrdp

Checking the status with systemctl:

bash
sudo systemctl status xrdp
● xrdp.service - xrdp daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2025-05-13 10:30:34 CEST; 3min 22s ago
       Docs: man:xrdp(8)
             man:xrdp.ini(5)
    Process: 779 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh /usr/share/xrdp/socksetup (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 790 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/xrdp $XRDP_OPTIONS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 816 (xrdp)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 19077)
     Memory: 21.2M
        CPU: 9.122s
     CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service
             ├─ 816 /usr/sbin/xrdp
             └─3621 /usr/sbin/xrdp
...[snip]...

And making sure it’s ‘enabled’ with systemctl:

bash
sudo systemctl enable xrdp
Synchronizing state of xrdp.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable xrdp

At this point we should be able to RDP to the machine.

Polkit Rules

Now let’s configure the Polkit rules to get rid of the password popups:

bash
sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/45-allow.colord.pkla" <<EOF
[Allow Colord all Users]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-profile
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes
EOF

And also add a Polkit rule to allow package updates:

bash
sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/46-allow-update-repo.pkla" <<EOF
[Allow Package Management all Users]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-sources-refresh;org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-network-proxy-configure
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes
EOF

Default Theme

Now let’s configure the default theme:

bash
# Backup the file before modifying it
sudo cp /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh.bak
sudo sed -i "4 a # Set default theme\ncat <<EOF > ~/.xsessionrc\nexport GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=$GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE\nexport XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP\nexport XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS\nEOF\n" /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh

Now make sure to logout and login again to see the changes.

Tags

xrdp