Install Xfce VNC remote desktop on Ubuntu

XFCE is a lightweight Desktop Environment for Linux. XFCE + vnc allows you to set up a remote desktop on a VPS or dedicated server located in a remote data center or cloud. You can connect to remote desktop using a VNC client and work like it is a local computer, similar to Windows Remote Desktop (RDP).

To install XFCE run

apt update
apt install -y xfce4 xfce4-goodies dbus-x11

You will be asked to select Default Display Manager. You can select any of the options.

Next install vncserver

apt install tightvncserver autocutsel

It is a bad idea to use root user for logging into the desktop. Create a normal user with sudo privileges to be used as desktop user.

useradd -m -s /bin/bash USERNAME

It will be good to make this user an admin, so the user can install software or update the system.

usermod -aG sudo USERNAME

Set a password for the user

passwd USERNAME

Now login as the user

su - USERNAME_HERE

Create a vnc password for this user.

vncpasswd

Create vnc startup file

vi ~/.vnc/xstartup

Add

#!/bin/bash

xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
autocutsel -fork
startxfce4 &

Make it executable

chmod 755 ~/.vnc/xstartup

Auto start VNC Server

To autostart vncserver on boot, you need to create a service file. You need to do the following as user root.

vi /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service

Add

[Unit]
Description=Start VNC server at startup
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=USERNAME
Group=USERNAME
WorkingDirectory=/home/USERNAME

PIDFile=/home/USERNAME/.vnc/%H:%i.pid
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1920x1080  :%i
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

In the above, replace USERNAME with the actual user name you created above.

Enable the service with

systemctl enable vncserver@1

Start the VNC server

systemctl start vncserver@1

Now reboot the server. You should be able to connect to VNC server using SERVER_IP:1

Common Errors and Solutions

When starting vncserver, i get error

xfce4-session-CRITICAL **: 20:18:42.985: dbus-launch not found, the desktop will not work properly!

To fix it, install

apt install dbus-x11

OPTIONAL: Using RDP instead of VNC

If you want to use RDP (Windows Remote Desktop) to connect instead of VNC, install xrdp

apt install -y xrdp

Edit

vi /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

Set value of new_cursors to false.

new_cursors=false

Change to desktop user

su - USERNAME

Create file

vi ~/.xsession

Add following content

xfce4-session
export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=xubuntu
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/USERNAME:/usr/share
export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/xfce4:/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg

Enable and restart XRDP

systemctl enable xrdp
systemctl restart xrdp

See VNC Server