How to Install xrdp on CentOS 7

xrdp is a free and open-source implementation of a remote desktop protocol server that enables Linux operating systems to provide a fully functional RDP compatible remote desktop experience. It allows us to take remote desktop connection of the Linux server from the Microsoft Windows machine.

Install and Configure EPEL Repository

sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

Install xrdp

sudo yum install xrdp tigervnc-server

Once xrdp package and respective dependencies installed. Start the xrdp service.

sudo systemctl start xrdp

Run the below command to enable the service at system startup.

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

Firewall

By default xrdp use port 3389, so we need to configure the firewall to allow RDP connection for external machines to connect.

sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=3389/tcp --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

SELinux

Configure SELinux

sudo chcon --type=bin_t /usr/sbin/xrdp
sudo chcon --type=bin_t /usr/sbin/xrdp-sesman

or change SELinux mode to permissive

sudo vim /etc/selinux/config

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
# enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
# permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
# disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=permissive
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
# targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
# minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected.
# mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

setenforce 0