Set up a desktop environment accessible via RDP on an AWS EC2 instance running Ubuntu

aws-ec2-ubuntu-desktop.md

add a non-root user with sudo permissions

(The username in this example is desktop.)

sudo addgroup --gid 2000 desktop
sudo adduser \
    --gid 2000 \
    --uid 2000 \
    --gecos "" \
    --disabled-login \
    desktop

sudo usermod -a -G sudo desktop
echo "desktop  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" | sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/desktop

Set a password for the desktop user:

sudo passwd desktop

install and configure desktop environment (XFCE)

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install --yes xubuntu-desktop

echo xfce4-session | sudo tee /home/desktop/.xsession

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/45-allow-colord.pkla
[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

install and enable xrdp service

sudo apt install --yes xrdp
sudo systemctl start xrdp
sudo systemctl enable xrdp

connect

Now it should be possible to connect to the instance IP via RDP using the desktop username and password.