How to install XRDP Server on CentOS 8

It’s an open-source implementation of the Microsoft Server for providing fully functional RDP access to remote desktops to operating systems other than Microsoft Windows. Security issues are minimal when using the xrdp service on your internal network. In contrast, there are others who would like to increase the security level of the XRP solution. One of the most common methods of creating a secure connection with Linux is to use SSH to create secure connections between clients and servers.

Let’s get started,

Step 1: Setting up the desktop environment

Remote desktops are not commonly installed on Linux Servers. The first step to connecting through a GUI is to install it. The following commands will install GNOME on your remote computer,

# dnf groupinstall "Server with GUI"

Step 2: Installing XRDP

You can download XRDP from the EPEL software repository. The following command will enable EPEL if it is not enabled,

dnf install epel-release

Now install XRDP,

dnf install xrdp

The XRDP service should be enabled and started once the installation is complete,

# systemctl enable xrdp

# systemctl start xrdp

Type the following command to verify XRDP is running,

systemctl status xrdp

● xrdp.service - xrdp daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2021-12-10 13:44:55 EST; 12s ago
     Docs: man:xrdp(8)
           man:xrdp.ini(5)
 Main PID: 92533 (xrdp)
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 4504)
   Memory: 940.0K
   CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service
           └─92533 /usr/sbin/xrdp --nodaemon

Dec 10 13:44:55 LAX-9f31-CentOS systemd[1]: Started xrdp daemon.
Dec 10 13:44:55 LAX-9f31-CentOS xrdp[92533]: [INFO ] starting xrdp with pid 92533
Dec 10 13:44:55 LAX-9f31-CentOS xrdp[92533]: [INFO ] address [0.0.0.0] port [3389] mode 1
Dec 10 13:44:55 LAX-9f31-CentOS xrdp[92533]: [INFO ] listening to port 3389 on 0.0.0.0
Dec 10 13:44:55 LAX-9f31-CentOS xrdp[92533]: [INFO ] xrdp_listen_pp done

Step 3: Configuring XRDP

To configure XRDP, open up /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini and add the following line.

exec gnome-session

Using the following command, start the XRDP service after adding the above line

systemctl restart xrdp

Step 4: Set up the Firewall

XRDP traffic can be allowed through the firewall if it is running on Centos 8,

# firewall-cmd --add-port = 3389/tcp -- permanent

# firewall-cmd –reload

Step 5: Using Windows to connect to the XRDP

On your Windows machine, launch the RDP client, followed by the IP address of your CentOS system,