How-to : Quickly configure RDP between a Windows (7) host and the Ubuntu 13.10 seed host (Updated)

How-to : Quickly configure RDP between a Windows (7) host and the Ubuntu 13.10 seed host

Note : This guide assumes that both the Windows 7 system and the Ubuntu seed host are reachable on the same network with port 3389 (default RDP) open.

Perform the following on the seed host

  • Install XRDP application

$ sudo apt-get install -y xrdp

  • Install a desktop environment

$ sudo apt-get install xfce4

  • Configure XRDP to use the XFCE desktop environment. This is on a per user basis in their home directory. I imagine that a best practise here would be to setup a non root account but as this is a crash and burn environment I’m not concerned about security (famous last words).

$ echo xfce4-session > ~/.xsession

  • Start the RDP service

$ sudo service xrdp restart

  • Note the IP address or hostname if you’ve setup DNS for this server

$ hostname -I

On the Windows 7 system

  • Run mstsc.exe

Select Start, type mstsc.exe and then run the RDP client application

  • Enter hostname or IP address of seed host and you should see something like this…

UPDATE : Configure TAB Completion for RDP terminal windows

  • edit xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml

vim ./home/<username>/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml


[Update : edit this file /etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml to perform this for all users – their current profile xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml will need to be deleted but will be automatically be regenerated when they login the next time over RDP]

  • replace

<property name=”&lt;Super&gt;Tab” type=”string” value=”switch_window_key”/>

with

<property name=”&lt;Super&gt;Tab” type=”string” value=”empty”/>

  • Logout of the RDP session and then back in again for these changes to take affect

Hopefully you know what to do from here 🙂