Gnome Remote Desktop on Ubuntu 26.04

Guestbook

Latest Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has dropped the support of X11 Server and xRDP and moved to the adoption of Wayland Display Server. Old approach with xRDP doesn’t work anymore. The solution / fix is the new Gnome Remote Desktop.

Gnome Remote Desktop

Generate Remote Desktop Server self-signed certificate:

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$ sudo openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.key -x509 -days 3650 -out /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.crt -subj "/CN=$(hostname)"

$ sudo chown gnome-remote-desktop:gnome-remote-desktop /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.key
$ sudo chown gnome-remote-desktop:gnome-remote-desktop /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.crt

Register self-signed certificate with the system daemon:

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$ sudo grdctl --system rdp set-tls-key /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.key
$ sudo grdctl --system rdp set-tls-cert /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.crt

$ sudo grdctl --system rdp set-credentials $(whoami) rdp-user-password

$ sudo grdctl --system rdp enable
$ sudo systemctl restart gnome-remote-desktop.service

After Gnome Remote Desktop restarted, in the log:

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$ sudo journalctl -u gnome-remote-desktop.service -f
...
Jun 06 22:21:17 Aorus systemd[1]: Starting gnome-remote-desktop.service - GNOME Remote Desktop...
Jun 06 22:21:17 Aorus gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[24618]: Init TPM credentials failed because Failed to initialize transmission interface context: tcti:IO failure, using GKeyFile as fallback
Jun 06 22:21:17 Aorus systemd[1]: Started gnome-remote-desktop.service - GNOME Remote Desktop.
Jun 06 22:21:17 Aorus gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[24618]: RDP server started

Show Remote Desktop Server status:

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$ sudo grdctl --system status --show-credentials
Overall:
        Unit status: active
RDP:
        Status: enabled
        Port: 3389
        Authentication methods: credentials
        TLS certificate: /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.crt
        TLS fingerprint: 71:f1:20:64:fe:e3:58:97:95:8d
        TLS key: /var/lib/gnome-remote-desktop/rdp-tls.key
        Kerberos keytab: (null)
        Username: terrence
        Password: rdp-user-password

When connect from Windows App (Microsoft Remote Desktop), error thrown in log:

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$ sudo journalctl -u gnome-remote-desktop.service -f
...
Jun 02 12:40:22 NucBox gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[58071]: [RDP] Sending server redirection
Jun 02 12:40:22 NucBox gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[58071]: [12:40:22:884] [58071:0004752e] [ERROR][com.freerdp.core.peer] - [rdp_set_error_info]: ERRINFO_LOGOFF_BY_USER [0x0001000C]
Jun 02 12:40:22 NucBox gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[58071]: [RDP] Network or intentional disconnect, stopping session

However, choose a different Remote Desktop Client like Royal TSX https://royalapps.com/ts/mac/features, works fine.

NOTE: This is a well-documented, well-known incompatibility between Windows App on macOS and GNOME Remote Desktop’s “server redirection” handshake — not something specific to 26.04, and there’s a widely confirmed fix.

What’s actually happening: in “Remote Login” (system) mode, GNOME Remote Desktop doesn’t hand you straight into a session. It first accepts the connection, then sends an RDP Server Redirection PDU telling the client “reconnect, here’s the real session token” (that’s [RDP] Sending server redirection line — this part is normal and means auth succeeded). Windows App on Mac has a bug/quirk where it doesn’t follow that redirection properly by default, so it just logs off immediately — hence ERRINFO_LOGOFF_BY_USER right after.

  1. Export the connection as an .rdp file

  2. Edit the file to force redirection handling - Find the line use redirection server name:i:0 and change the 0 to a 1. This is the specific setting Windows App needs to correctly follow GNOME’s server-redirection handshake instead of dropping the session.

  3. Delete old entry and import the edited .rdp file into Windows App

References

Contents

  1. References