How to Setup GUI on Amazon EC2 Ubuntu Server

Amazon EC2 Linux servers do not come with GUI, all the operations have to be done using ssh console. So if you wish to have a GUI for your Amazon Linux instances like Amazon AMI, or other Linux distribution, you can achieve it easy steps. Once you installed the GUI essentials on your server, you can access it via windows, remote desktop client. If you are using Linux, then you can use the VNC viewer as a remote desktop client. In order to have a GUI, a lightweight LXDE desktop has to be installed on your server.

LXDE

LXDE is Designed for Cloud-Based Server
GUI which is lightweight for Linux
Support Standard Keyboard Shortcut
Fast Performance
Prerequisite

1 ) EC2 Instance running with Ubuntu AMI

2) Security Group allow inbound traffic for SSH (22) and RDP (3389) port

Steps to Configure

Step 1: Connect to the EC2 Instance through ssh (you can use putty for windows)

Step 2: Update Ubuntu and install lxde using the following command

sudo apt-get update -y

sudo apt-get install lxde -y

Step 3: Install xrdp to establish a remote desktop connection, using the below command you can install xrdp

sudo apt-get install xrdp -y

Step 4: set password for ubuntu user which uses for connect using Remote Desktop

sudo passwd ubuntu

Step 5: Take EC2 instance Public Ip or DNS and access though remote Desktop