X2Go

The free & open source remote desktop application X2Go can be used to securely set up a graphical remote desktop session, in order to remotely run interactive GUI tools. X2Go provides much better performance than X11 forwarding or conventional VNC servers on Linux hosts, has inherent security, and supports advanced features (such as audio support).

Please refer to the X2Go website for installation and configuration instructions.

Non-default settings:

• Host: |hostname|

• Login: <username>

• Session type: choose XFCE as the window manager

Here are a few settings to tweak within XFCE that could resolve some issues we have come across before:

• under Settings > Screensaver, turn off screen saver, and lock screen

• under Settings > Power Manager: turn off System and Display power management

• under Settings > Window Manager Tweaks, > Compositor; disable display compositing

Another problem you may run into: Stuck, suspended X2Go sessions may not get properly terminated, and cause reconnecting to fail. In that case, use SSH to login, and list the current X2Go sessions with x2golistsessions. The second field listed is the session identifier. Use this to terminate the session with: x2goterminate-session <session-identifier>.