+++
title = 'Experimenting with xrdp'
date = 2019-08-08T10:38:00-06:00
+++

I needed to use the iDRAC on the prototype appliances to install FMOS. I tried
several ways of using the Remote File Share feature to map the virtual media
(HTTP, NFS, CIFS), but could not get any of them to work: most options
appeared to do nothing, giving an error message about invalid path or
credentials, without even attempting to connect to the specified server. I
knew that the client-side virtual media would not work over the VPN, so I
decided to try setting up a GUI on a machine in the office to run Firefox and
the iDRAC virtual console applet, and then connect to it remotely.

On Fedora, setting up xrdp was pretty simple. I just installed the *xrdp*
package, which pulled in the *xorgxrdp* and *xorg-x11-server-Xorg*. Besides
adding the port to the firewall, the change I had to make was to create
`/etc/X11/Xwraper.config` and set `allowed_users=anybody`, to allow non-local
users to create X sessions.  Then, just starting the *xrdp* service was all
that was necessary.  I did have to work around a bug by passing `+glyph-cache`
(or ticking the corresponding checkbox to `xfreerdp` to get the client to
connect, but otherwise, the process was pretty smooth.  I then instaled
*firefox*, *i3*, and *icedtea-web*.  The only part that was somewhat confusing
is that `~/.xinitrc` did not work; the launch script had to be named
`~/startwm.sh`.