Is there a way to access the server remotely from anywhere using XRDP considering both the server and a client run fedora workstation?

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1

Hey! I was looking for free and open source alternative to TigerVNC that scales pretty well and works on fedora without issues.

I travel a lot and I need constant access to my PC from my laptop that isn’t as powerful as my PC.

I did a bit of reading and decided to try out XRDP.

The problem is, XRDP is commonly used with RDP client and since both of my machines are on linux I can easily forget about it.

I wonder if it’s even worth it, considering my goal of smooth remote desktop experience.

Your thoughts would be deeply appreciated. Thank you.

2

One very strong consideration is this.
How is your PC connected to the internet? That is a factor in being able to connect back to it from a remote location. If it is, as the majority are, on a home style network using a private IP address range such as 192.168.0.0/24 then it is difficult to connect directly to that machine from the internet.

If instead you are connected directly to the internet and have a public IP address that is easily accessed from the internet it becomes easier to connect, but much higher risk from attackers.

There are ways to work around both styles of connection, but it does require that the user be aware of the issues and be able to properly manage the connections – securely. That is even before you would need to become concerned with the remote desktop experience (which will never be the same quality as when directly at the console).

Your laptop probably has a better direct desktop experience than would be possible with remote access to the PC. This is the nature of access across a network where you have no control of the hardware or software or connection speeds or other users hogging the bandwidth.

3

@deverin to overcome this, you can use Tailscale or manually setup a wireguard mesh network

4

How about securing the connection through OpenSSH is it possible?

5

There are multiple client apps supporting RDP including GNOME Connections and Remmina.
The latter also allows tunneling RDP and VNC over SSH, although setting up a VPN is preferable.

6

Hey, it’s been a while since I looked into this topic but thank you for your answer I didn’t know that were clients supporting RDP on Linux. Ultimately, I decided to use tailscale to establish my connections. Now I have another problem, when I connect to my PC using gnome connections i get blank screen that turns glitchy after a while. I just wonder what could go wrong. The only thing I did is uncommenting Xorg section in /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini and commenting Xvnc section.