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How to Upgrade Ubuntu Server to Desktop on Amazon AWS

When working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), you may find yourself using an Ubuntu Server instance. However, there may be situations where you would prefer to have a desktop environment. In this blog post, we’ll guide you on how to upgrade your Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop on an AWS instance.
By Saturn Cloud | | Miscellaneous

How to Upgrade Ubuntu Server to Desktop on Amazon AWS

When working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), you may find yourself using an Ubuntu Server instance. However, there may be situations where you would prefer to have a desktop environment. In this blog post, we’ll guide you on how to upgrade your Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop on an AWS instance.

Before we proceed, it is important to understand that running a desktop environment on a server does increase the resource usage, and it may lead to increased costs on AWS. But, it can be beneficial in scenarios where you need a GUI for specific applications or tasks.

Prerequisites

  1. An AWS account
  2. An Ubuntu Server instance running on AWS
  3. SSH access to the server

Step 1: Updating Your Ubuntu Server

Before we install the desktop environment, it’s good practice to ensure your server is up-to-date. Connect to your server via SSH and run the following commands:

sudo apt update 
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Installing the Ubuntu Desktop

The next step is to install Ubuntu Desktop. There are several desktop environments available for Ubuntu, but we’ll use the default GNOME desktop. Run the following command to install it:

sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop

This might take a while, as it downloads and installs several packages.

Step 3: Setting Up the Desktop Environment

Once the installation of Ubuntu Desktop is complete, we need to set up a way to access the desktop environment. We’ll use VNC (Virtual Network Computing) for this purpose. To install a VNC server, run:

sudo apt install tightvncserver

Start a VNC session with the command:

vncserver

You’ll be prompted to create a password. This will be used when connecting to the VNC server.

Step 4: Configuring Your VNC Client

On your local machine, you need to install a VNC client. For Windows, you can use TightVNC, and for Mac, RealVNC is a good option.

Once installed, connect to your VNC server with the following address:

<Your AWS Instance Public IP>:5901

And enter the VNC password you set earlier.

Step 5: Securing Your VNC Connection

Since VNC traffic is not encrypted, it is recommended to secure the connection by using an SSH tunnel. Here’s how you can do that:

ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 -N -f -l <username> <Your AWS Instance Public IP>

Then, you can connect to your VNC server by using localhost:5901 on your VNC client.

And that’s it! You now have an Ubuntu Desktop running on your AWS instance. Remember to stop the instance when not in use to avoid unnecessary charges.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we walked you through the process of upgrading Ubuntu Server to Ubuntu Desktop on an AWS instance. We hope this guide helps you in expanding the capabilities of your AWS instances and enhances your cloud computing experience.

Keywords

  • Amazon AWS
  • Ubuntu Server
  • Ubuntu Desktop
  • Upgrade Ubuntu Server
  • AWS instance
  • VNC server
  • VNC client
  • SSH tunnel

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