30 May 2022

Enable/Disable Multiple RDP Sessions

So the caveat to this article is that this is specifically for Windows Servers. If you’re trying to enable multiple RDP sessions on Windows 10 or 11, you’ll need to do some further googling to find out how to do that – as this alone won’t be enough.

Enable Multiple RDP Sessions

  1. Log into the server you are trying to enable multiple Remote Desktop sessions on.
  2. Click on the start menu button, type “gpedit.msc” and open it.
  3. Navigate to ‘Computer Configuration’ -> ‘Administrative Templates’ -> ‘Windows Components’ -> ‘Remote Desktop Services’ -> ‘Remote Desktop Session Host’ -> ‘Connections’.
  4. Set “Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session” to ‘Disabled’.
  5. Double-click on “Limit number of connections” and set the value of the RD Maximum Connections allowed to ‘999999’.

Disable Multiple RDP Sessions

  1. Log into the server that allows multiple Remote Desktop sessions.
  2. Click on the start menu button, type “gpedit.msc” and open it.
  3. Navigate to ‘Computer Configuration’ -> ‘Administrative Templates’ -> ‘Windows Components’ -> ‘Remote Desktop Services’ -> ‘Remote Desktop Session Host’ -> ‘Connections’.
  4. Set “Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session” to ‘Enabled’.
Category: Microsoft, Windows 2016, Windows 2019 | LEAVE A COMMENT
24 April 2020

RDP on Raspberry Pi

If you are like me, the computers around my house are predominately Windows based. Which is fine until you try to remotely connect to the desktop of your RPi. The Raspbian OS just doesn’t work MS’s Remote Desktop Protocol out of the box.

It can though, and all it takes a few is a few steps to enable to the RDP on Raspbian. And in my opinion, since I’m mostly on Windows, it is well worth it just for the convenience. I’ll be using Raspbian Buster in my examples below. If you’re not already on Buster, check out my article on upgrading Stretch to Buster.

Installing Xrdp on Rpi

Lets begin by updating your RPi with the following commands.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Lets install Pixel on our RPi. Pixel is the default desktop environment on Raspbian desktop images. It’s stable, light weight, and fast. Which is perfect for running remotely on our RPi. To install Pixel, use the command below.

sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-ui-mods xinit xserver-xorg

After installing Pixel, it’s time for a reboot

sudo reboot now

Next we install the Xrdp package. It is available in the default Raspbian repositories. Use the command below to install Xrdp.

sudo apt install xrdp

The service will automatically start once it has installed, but we can check it’s status with the following command. It should display the status of “running” on the screen.

systemctl show -p SubState --value xrdp

Lastly we need to add the user that is running the service to the “ssl-cert” group. Xrdp uses the key file “/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key” which is only read-able to the users of the “ssl-cert” group. USe the folowing command to add the user to the group.

sudo adduser xrdp ssl-cert

Your RPi now supports RDP! You can easily connect to it using the MS Remote Desktop Connection your Windows machines.

Connecting to your RPi from Windows

From your windows machine, click on the ‘Start menu’ or Windows Search field and type “remote”.

Once the Remote Desktop Connection App launches, enter the IP address of your RPi. Then click the “Connect” button.

Enter the login credentials for your RPi. Then click ‘Ok’.

BAM! Just like that you have successfully connected to and just RDP-ed into your RPi. Well done!

Category: Linux, RaspberryPi, Raspbian | LEAVE A COMMENT