azurecoder's blog

This is a weird post.

I decided to write this simply because there should be a little parity in the way that we manage Windows and Linux. Everything I do now with Linux I through the Terminal but with Windows via Remote Desktop. I decided to enable RD for my Ubuntu instance running Spark. I don’t actually use it but it’s nice to to have the option!

To start with install an Ubuntu desktop. The default is unity but some of you may prefer Gnome.

apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Then you need to install an RD server which you can do like so:

apt-get install xrdp

When this is done you need to be able to configure the Windows Azure firewall. So you can see that the xrdp port uses the same port default as our RDP port on windows.

Firewall ports

Easiest thing to do after that is to download Bitvise Tunnelier which I’ve discussed in a previous post.

After you’ve SSH’d in you should be able to see the Remote Desktop menu like so.

Remote Desktop menu

You also need to make sure that the right computer name is in the remote desktop configuration.

Remote Desktop Configuration

Click on the RD menu link and voila!

The windows remote desktop client should present something like this (the refresh sucks but it works okay):

remote desktop client

Enjoy etc.