Setting up Chrome Remote Desktop for Linux on Compute Engine

This tutorial shows you how to set up the Chrome Remote Desktop service on a Debian Linux virtual machine (VM) instance on Compute Engine. Chrome Remote Desktop allows you to remotely access applications with a graphical user interface from a local computer or mobile device. For this approach, you don't need to open firewall ports, and you use your Google Account for authentication and authorization.

Note: This solution is not suitable for graphically intensive applications, including playing videos, because those typically require hardware graphics acceleration as well as a network that has high bandwidth and low latency. If you want to run graphically intense applications remotely, see the Creating a virtual GPU-accelerated Linux workstation tutorial for an alternative solution.

This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the Linux command line and with installing Debian packages.

For information about other options for creating virtual workstations, see Creating a virtual workstation.

Objectives

• Create a headless Compute Engine VM instance to run Chrome Remote Desktop on.
• Install and configure the Chrome Remote Desktop service on the VM instance.
• Set up an X Window System desktop environment in the VM instance.
• Connect from your local computer to the desktop environment on the VM instance.

Costs

This tutorial uses billable components of Google Cloud, including:

• Compute Engine

Use the Pricing Calculator to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud Console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to confirm that billing is enabled for your project.

This tutorial requires that you use the Google Chrome browser on your local computer. If you don't have it already, you can install it from the Google Chrome home page.

Creating a Compute Engine instance

For the purposes of this tutorial, the default 1 vCPU (n1-standard-1) machine type with Debian Linux boot disk works fine, so you don't need to change the default settings.

1. In the Cloud Console, go to the VM Instances page:

   Go to the VM Instances page

2. Click Create.

3. Set the instance name to crdhost.

4. Optionally, select a region and zone that's close to you.

5. Click Create.

   It takes a few moments to create your instance.

6. After the instance has been created, connect to your new instance by clicking the SSH button in the instance list:

   

Installing Chrome Remote Desktop on the VM instance

The next step is to install Chrome Remote Desktop on the VM instance.

1. In the SSH window connected to your VM instance, update the package manager data and install wget:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt-get install --assume-yes wget
   

2. Download the Debian Linux Chrome Remote Desktop installation package:

   wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb
   

3. Install the package and its dependencies:

   sudo dpkg --install chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb
   sudo apt install --assume-yes --fix-broken
   

Installing an X Windows System desktop environment

You need to install an X Window System desktop environment and window manager for Chrome Remote Desktop to use. Common options are:

• Xfce. This is a simple, lightweight desktop environment that works well with remote connections over slower networks.
• Cinnamon. This is a more full-featured traditional desktop environment that will be more familiar to desktop PC users. However, it uses more graphical elements and needs a fast network to run smoothly.

You can use other desktop environments, but Chrome Remote Desktop does not support 3D graphics acceleration. If you do choose a desktop environment that uses 3D graphics acceleration, you need to disable that feature, or the remote desktop service won't start.

Xfce

1. In the SSH window connected to your VM instance, install the Xfce desktop environment and basic desktop components:

   sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
       apt install --assume-yes xfce4 desktop-base
   

   The DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive parameter suppresses a prompt to configure a layout for a keyboard that would be directly connected to the VM instance.

   Note: You might see a Permission Denied error for the update-initramfs process during installation. This is normal, and you can ignore the error.

2. Configure Chrome Remote Desktop to use Xfce by default:

   sudo bash -c 'echo "exec /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/xfce4-session" > /etc/chrome-remote-desktop-session'
   

3. Xfce's default screen locker is Light Locker, which doesn't work with Chrome Remote Desktop. (The screen locker displays a blank screen and cannot be unlocked). Therefore, install XScreenSaver as an alternative:

   sudo apt install --assume-yes xscreensaver
   

4. Optionally, install the full suite of Linux desktop applications, including the Firefox browser, LibreOffice office application suite, and the Evince PDF viewer:

   sudo apt install --assume-yes task-xfce-desktop
   

Cinnamon

1. In the SSH window connected to your VM instance, install the Cinnamon desktop environment and basic desktop components:

   sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
       apt install --assume-yes cinnamon-core desktop-base
   

   The DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive parameter suppresses a prompt to configure a layout for a keyboard that would be directly connected to the VM instance.

   Note: You might see a Permission Denied error for the update-initramfs process during the installation process. This is normal and you can ignore the error.

2. Set your Chrome Remote Desktop session to use Cinnamon in 2D mode (which does not use 3D graphics acceleration) by default:

   sudo bash -c 'echo "exec /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d" > /etc/chrome-remote-desktop-session'
   

3. Optionally, install the full suite of Linux desktop applications, including the Firefox browser, the LibreOffice office application suite, and the Evince PDF viewer:

   sudo apt install --assume-yes task-cinnamon-desktop
   

Regardless of which desktop environment you've installed, complete the installation process by following these steps:

1. Disable the display manager service on your instance. There is no display connected to your instance, so the display manager service won't start.

   sudo systemctl disable lightdm.service
   

2. Optionally, install the Chrome browser on your instance:

   wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
   
   sudo dpkg --install google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
   sudo apt install --assume-yes --fix-broken
   

Configuring and starting the Chrome Remote Desktop service

To start the remote desktop server, you need to have an authorization key for the Google account that you want to use to connect to it:

1. In the SSH window connected to your VM instance, add your user account to the chrome-remote-desktop Linux group and log out.

   sudo usermod -a -G chrome-remote-desktop $USER
   logout
   

2. In the Cloud Console, reconnect to your instance by clicking the SSH button.

3. On your local computer, using the Chrome browser, go to the Chrome Remote Desktop command line setup page:

   https://remotedesktop.google.com/headless

4. If you're not already signed in, sign in with a Google Account. This is the account that will be used for authorizing remote access.

5. On the Set up another computer page, click Begin.

6. On the Download and install Chrome Remote Desktop page, click Next.

7. Click Authorize.

   You need to allow Chrome Remote Desktop to access your account. If you approve, the page displays a command line for Debian Linux that looks like the following:

   DISPLAY= /opt/google/chrome-remote-desktop/start-host \
       --code="4/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
       --redirect-url="https://remotedesktop.google.com/_/oauthredirect" \
       --name=
   

   You use this command to set up and start the Chrome Remote Desktop service on your VM instance, linking it with your Google Account using the authorization code.

   Note: The authorization code in the command line is valid for only a few minutes, and you can use it only once.

8. Copy the command to the SSH window that's connected to your instance, and then run the command.

9. When you're prompted for a name for the computer, enter the instance name (crdhost).

10. When you're prompted, enter a 6-digit PIN. This number will be used for additional authorization when you connect later.

Connecting to the VM instance

You can connect to the VM instance using the Chrome Remote Desktop web application.

1. On your local computer, go to the Chrome Remote Desktop web site.

2. Click Remote Access

3. If you're not already signed in to Google, sign in with the same Google Account that you used to set up the Chrome Remote Desktop service.

   You see your new VM instance in the Remote Devices list.

4. Click the name of the remote desktop instance.

5. When you're prompted, enter the PIN that you created earlier, and then click the arrow button to connect.

   You are now connected to the desktop environment on your remote Compute Engine instance.

If you installed the Xfce desktop, the first time you connect, you are prompted to set up the desktop panels. Click Use Default Config to get the standard taskbar at the top and the quick launch panel at the bottom.

Improving the remote desktop experience

This section provides instructions for changing settings in order to improve the remote desktop experience.

Enable Clipboard Synchronization

Clipboard Synchronization allows the contents of the clipboard to be shared between the local and remote machines. If this feature is not already enabled, do the following:

1. Open the Session Options panel using the button on the side of the window.
2. In the Enable Clipboard Synchronization section, click Begin.
3. Click Allow.

Install the Remote Desktop Chrome app

The Remote Desktop Chrome app gives a separate windowed experience and allows more keyboard shortcuts to be used on the remote system. If this app is not installed, do the following:

1. Open the Session Options panel using the button on the side of the window.
2. In the Install App section, click Begin.

3. Click Install.

   The remote desktop session is reopened in a separate window.

You can move any remote desktop sessions from a Chrome tab to the app window by clicking the Open With icon in the URL bar.

Disable animations and effects in Cinnamon

The Cinnamon desktop uses several graphical features and animations, such as semi-transparent windows and menus that fade in and out. Because these animations take more time to render over a remote connection, it can make the user interface feel slow.

To disable these effects:

1. In the Cinnamon desktop, select Menu > Preferences > Effects.

   

2. Disable each of the effects:

   

Disable screensavers, lock screens, and passwords

Because you're accessing your desktop from a remote computer, it's normally not necessary to use a screensaver or screen locker.

Xfce

1. In the Applications menu, select Settings > Screensaver.

2. Set Mode to Disable Screen Saver.

   

Cinnamon

1. In the desktop, select Menu > Preferences > Screensaver.

2. In the Settings tab, set Delay to Never and disable the two lock settings:

   

The user account created by Compute Engine doesn't have a password, and most screen-locking apps can't unlock screens for users that don't have a password. However, even when screensavers are disabled, it's still possible to lock the screen from the Applications menu.

To avoid getting locked out of the remote desktop, you can set a password for your user:

1. Connect to the instance using SSH, as you did when you first set up the instance.

2. Create a password for the user:

   sudo passwd $(whoami)
   

   This password is required only in order to unlock the screen.

Increase the desktop resolution

If you have an ultra high-resolution monitor, you might find that the default maximum remote desktop size of 1600 x 1200 is too small. If so, you can increase it to the resolution of your monitor.

1. Use SSH to connect to the instance.

2. Set the CHROME_REMOTE_DESKTOP_DEFAULT_DESKTOP_SIZES environment variable to include the resolution of your monitor:

   echo "export CHROME_REMOTE_DESKTOP_DEFAULT_DESKTOP_SIZES=1600x1200,3840x2560" \
       >> ~/.profile
   

3. Restart the service:

   sudo systemctl restart chrome-remote-desktop
   

Choose a different desktop environment

In the preceding section, you set a default desktop environment in the /etc/chrome-remote-desktop-session file. You can also choose a different desktop environment (if it's installed) by specifying it in the .chrome-remote-desktop-session configuration file in your home directory:

Xfce

echo "exec /usr/bin/xfce4-session" > ~/.chrome-remote-desktop-session

Cinnamon

echo "exec /usr/bin/cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d" > ~/.chrome-remote-desktop-session

After you make this change, restart the service so the change takes effect:

sudo systemctl restart chrome-remote-desktop

As mentioned before, Chrome Remote Desktop does not support 3D graphics acceleration. Therefore, for any desktop environments that uses these features, you need disable 3D graphics, or the session will not start.

Automating the installation process

When you need to set up multiple machines with Chrome Remote Desktop, the manual installation steps can become repetitive. You can use a custom startup script to automate this process, using the following procedure:

1. In the Cloud Console, go to the VM Instances page:

   Go to the VM Instances page

2. Click Create Instance.

3. Set the instance name to crdhost-autoinstall.

4. Optionally, select a region and zone that's close to you.

5. Copy the following shell script and paste it into the Automation/Startup Script textbox:

   #!/bin/bash -x
   #
   # Startup script to install Chrome remote desktop and a desktop environment.
   #
   # See environmental variables at then end of the script for configuration
   #
   
   function install_desktop_env {
     PACKAGES="desktop-base xscreensaver"
   
     if [[ "$INSTALL_XFCE" != "yes" && "$INSTALL_CINNAMON" != "yes" ]] ; then
       # neither XFCE nor cinnamon specified; install both
       INSTALL_XFCE=yes
       INSTALL_CINNAMON=yes
     fi
   
     if [[ "$INSTALL_XFCE" = "yes" ]] ; then
       PACKAGES="$PACKAGES xfce4"
       echo "exec xfce4-session" > /etc/chrome-remote-desktop-session
       [[ "$INSTALL_FULL_DESKTOP" = "yes" ]] && \
         PACKAGES="$PACKAGES task-xfce-desktop"
     fi
   
     if [[ "$INSTALL_CINNAMON" = "yes" ]] ; then
       PACKAGES="$PACKAGES cinnamon-core"
       echo "exec cinnamon-session-cinnamon2d" > /etc/chrome-remote-desktop-session
       [[ "$INSTALL_FULL_DESKTOP" = "yes" ]] && \
         PACKAGES="$PACKAGES task-cinnamon-desktop"
     fi
   
     DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
       apt-get install --assume-yes $PACKAGES $EXTRA_PACKAGES
   
     systemctl disable lightdm.service
   }
   
   function download_and_install { # args URL FILENAME
     curl -L -o "$2" "$1"
     dpkg --install "$2"
     apt-get install --assume-yes --fix-broken
   }
   
   function is_installed {  # args PACKAGE_NAME
     dpkg-query --list "$1" | grep -q "^ii" 2>/dev/null
     return $?
   }
   
   # Configure the following environmental variables as required:
   INSTALL_XFCE=yes
   INSTALL_CINNAMON=yes
   INSTALL_CHROME=yes
   INSTALL_FULL_DESKTOP=yes
   
   # Any additional packages that should be installed on startup can be added here
   EXTRA_PACKAGES="less bzip2 zip unzip"
   
   apt-get update
   
   ! is_installed chrome-remote-desktop && \
     download_and_install \
       https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb \
       /tmp/chrome-remote-desktop_current_amd64.deb
   
   install_desktop_env
   
   [[ "$INSTALL_CHROME" = "yes" ]] && \
     ! is_installed google-chrome-stable && \
     download_and_install \
       https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb \
       /tmp/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
   
   echo "Chrome remote desktop installation completed"
   

   This script performs the following tasks each time the machine is rebooted:

   • If the remote desktop package is not installed:
     • Downloads and installs the Chrome Remote Desktop package.
     • Installs the dependent packages.
   • Installs the Xfce or Cinnamon desktop environments (depending on the script settings).
   • If the full desktop environment option is enabled, installs the necessary packages.
   • If the Chrome browser option is enabled and is not installed:
     • Downloads and installs the Chrome Remote Desktop package.
     • Installs the dependent packages.
   Note: You can choose which packages to install by using the variables defined near the end of the script.

6. Click Create.

   It takes a few moments to create your instance, and on first run with all the options enabled, the script can take up to 10 minutes to complete the installation.

7. To monitor progress, connect to the VM instance using SSH, and in the terminal of the instance, run the following command:

   sudo journalctl -o cat -f _SYSTEMD_UNIT=google-startup-scripts.service
   

   This command shows the output from the startup script. When the script has finished, you see the following:

   INFO startup-script: Chrome remote desktop installation completed
   INFO startup-script: Return code 0.
   INFO Finished running startup scripts.
   

This script only installs the required packages; you still need to configure the Remote Desktop Service for your user, as described previously.

There are various ways to specify a startup script when creating a new VM instance:

• Pasting it into the Cloud Console (as shown earlier).
• Storing it as a file on a local machine, and using the --metadata-from-file flag when you create the instance using the gcloud command line tool.
• Storing it in a Cloud Storage bucket and specifying the URL to the object—either in the console or in the gcloud tool.

For more information on the alternative methods of how to configure the startup script, see Running Startup scripts in the Compute Engine documentation.

Troubleshooting

Check the status of the Chrome Remote Desktop service

If at any point the Chrome Remote Desktop service is not responding, you can check its status by using SSH to connect to the instance and running the following command:

sudo systemctl status chrome-remote-desktop

If the service is running, you see output that includes the state active:

chrome-remote-desktop.service - LSB: Chrome Remote Desktop service
    Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/chrome-remote-desktop; generated; vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: active (exited) since DATE_TIME, ELAPSED_TIME

To restart the service, use the following command in the SSH window:

sudo systemctl restart chrome-remote-desktop

Get log and error information

Chrome Remote Desktop writes log information to files whose names match the following pattern:

/tmp/chrome_remote_desktop_DATE_TIME_*

You can check these log files for error messages.

Re-enable the service

If you have mistakenly disabled connections to the remote instance in the client app, you can reconfigure the service and re-enable it by following the instructions in Configuring and starting the Chrome Remote Desktop service.

Cleaning up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used in this tutorial, either delete the project that contains the resources, or keep the project and delete the individual resources.

Deleting the project

The easiest way to eliminate billing is to delete the project that you created for the tutorial.

To delete the project:

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:

• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for this tutorial, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.

If you plan to explore multiple tutorials and quickstarts, reusing projects can help you avoid exceeding project quota limits.

1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to Manage resources

2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

Delete the Compute Engine instance

As an alternative to deleting the entire project, you can delete the VM instance you created for this tutorial:

1. In the Cloud Console, go to the VM Instances page:

   Go to the VM Instances page

2. Select the checkbox next to the instance name you created earlier (crdhost).

3. Click the Delete button at the top of the page:

   

   It takes a few moments to delete your instance.

Deauthorize Chrome Remote Desktop for the instance

If you no longer want to connect to the VM instance, you can disable it and remove the instance from the Remote Devices list.

1. On your local computer, go to the Chrome Remote Desktop Remote Device list (Beta) web site.

2. Click next to the instance name:

   

3. Click OK to confirm that the remote device connection should be disabled.

What's next

• Try accessing the remote desktop environment from your mobile phone using the Android or IOS Chrome Remote Desktop apps.
• Learn about other options for creating a virtual workstation.
• Try out other Google Cloud features for yourself. Have a look at our tutorials.