So I’m running the KDE Plasma version of Fedora 43, and I have enabled the Remote Desktop (RDP) server that’s built in to that.
When I first turn on my machine (or after a fresh reboot), I can RDP into it just fine. Once, maybe twice. After a day or two, though, it stops accepting connections. My client sits there and spins and never connects, eventually timing out:
Why does it do this? This is Linux – you’re not supposed to have to reboot the thing regularly to make it work. It’s not Windows!
I need regular remote access to my machine – this is VERY MUCH a deal-breaker. Why does KDE’s RDP server act like this? Is there a fix? (And, yes, I have kept up-to-date with all the updates. I run sudo dnf update on a very regular basis.)
Is there a different RDP server I should install, perhaps? One that isn’t a buggy piece of garbage?
How are you specifying the desktop to connect to, on the client - via IP address or hostname?
Can you replicate the situation where it fails to connect and try running a telnet to the hostname or the ip address, or however you normally specify it, on the same port. Get any response from the server?
Is there anything in the logs for the time you were connecting successfully versus the time it failed?
What is the host operating system and RDP client that you’re trying to use to connect to the Linux system? There are known issues for example with Microsoft’s Windows app (RDP client) on macOS when trying to connect to Linux. There is a workaround that involves a manual edit to a .rdp file for the connection to work properly.
I am using the IP address – I never did get mDNS working correctly (didn’t really try all that hard though), so nothing on the network knows my workstation’s name.
I try telnetting to the IP address using the default RDP port, and it sits there for about 60 seconds then says “Unable to connect to remote host.”
I couldn’t find any rdp-specific logfiles in /var/log, and the generic ones (secure and messages) had no references to rdp anywhere (cat /var/log/secure | grep rdp for example showed nothing). Are there other log files somewhere else that I can check?
Just FYI, systemctl list-units --type=service shows nothing with ‘rdp’ or ‘krdp’ in it currently, and when I click on the up-arrow in the system-tray in the lower-right corner of my screen (the one that says “Show hidden icons,” it lists RDP Server as one of those icons – however, when I click on it, it does absolutely nothing.
Something’s definitely not right with RDP on my Fedora KDE machine.
The output from journalctl would be my first place to look.
If that telnet using the IP address and whatever port you have the RDP server running on returns no data or any kind of handshake, but effectively says “nope - there’s nothing listening on that port” it would imply that the RDP server on the target is no longer running… which I why I was wondering about what logs you get from journalctl.
That’s still a huge amount of data. I typed /rdp <enter> and it found one entry for krdpserver[2451] Could not find any platform plugin but I’m not sure that’s the only reference to ‘rdp’ in here… How do I “find next” in this thing?
Oh – found it. n is the next instance, N is the previous one.
Ok – there’s nothing before that one, and it’s quite a while before that time that I last tried to connect via RDP.
I rebooted, and there are many references to it during startup. But nothing that indicates it’s not working, and now that I’ve rebooted, it does work again…
krdp doesn’t run as a system background process like its counterpart on GNOME. It’s started when a user logs in via KDE desktop. That means it’s a desktop sharing configuration as opposed to a remote graphical login.
I’ve seen some wonky behavior in my testing where the rdp feature causes the KDE desktop to hang – rebooting seemed to fix it.
It does seem that the KDE RDP server is somewhat less than robust.
I’ve seen some wonky behavior in my testing where the rdp feature causes the KDE desktop to hang – rebooting seemed to fix it.
That might explain why sometimes I can’t even log in when sitting at the keyboard – it takes the password and then sits there doing nothing. I have to click “Switch User” even though there is only one user on my machine, and then it will let me log in again.
So we’re back to “KDE’s RDP server is a buggy mess.” Is there a different RDP server that I could install? Something that does run as a system background process?
Oh, and ssytemctl status --user app-org.kde.krdpserver returns this currently:
Fedora 43 workstation will force disconnect RDP if screen blanking and power saving options are enabled, and will not allow further RDP connections until after a reboot.
These are exactly my symptoms… It seems to happen when I’ve connected and then I walk away for a bit – it dumps my connection and won’t let me get back on without a reboot.
