Launch Amazon Linux 2 with GUI
Connect to GUI (RDP and VNC)
Connect to your instance via SSH
Deploy files on your VM remotely
Configure GUI
Troubleshooting
Navigate to our listing page on the AWS Marketplace and click 'Continue to Subscribe'.
On the subsequent page, review and accept our terms by selecting 'Accept Terms'.
Once the subscription process is complete, select 'Continue to Configuration'.
Choose the region where you wish to deploy the virtual machine, then click 'Continue to Launch'.
On the final page, select the instance type you wish to use (the recommended instance type is pre-selected) and review the other launch options. Then, click 'Launch'.
After launching, you can view your instance in the EC2 Management Console.
Access the EC2 Management Console (ensure to be in the correct AWS region) to retrieve the public IP address of your virtual machine. For the VNC connection, use the instance ID as the password (e.g. i-0a85cdce733efbb08). The username to use is 'ec2-user'.
Open 'Remote Desktop Connection' and connect using the public IP address of your virtual machine.
Important: Expand "More Options" and select "Allow me to save credentials" to ensure the Remote Desktop Connection prompts you for a password before connecting.
When prompted, enter 'ubuntu' as the username and the instance ID of your virtual machine as the password (please refer to the previous steps).
If you see the screen below, the login attempt has failed, usually due to an incorrect password. You can re-enter the password on this screen, but please note that the keyboard layout on this login page is set to English. Special characters may appear differently because of your physical keyboard's layout. Since the password is the instance ID of your EC2 instance, keep in mind that the hyphen ("-") in the instance ID (e.g., "i-0abc...") may be in a different location on an English keyboard - it’s usually next to the "0" (zero) key on the right. We recommend setting the password directly in the RDP client (see the "Connect to GUI" section).
Please see the official documentation for detailed instructions on how to connect to a virtual machine with SSH.
Go to the EC2 Management Console and select the virtual machine to obtain its Public IPv4 address.
Open a Command Prompt / Terminal window and navigate to the directory where your created .pem key file is located. You can connect to your VM with the user 'ec2-user' by executing the following command:
ssh -i <name-of-key-file.pem> ec2-user@<public-ip>
Download and install WinSCP or any other SCP client of your choice.
Choose 'SFTP' as the file protocol and enter the public IP address of your instance, using 'ec2-user' as the username.
Click on 'Advanced'.
In the left-side menu, select 'Authentication'. Under Authentication parameters, select the key file you created when you launched the virtual machine. When prompted, convert the .pem key file to PuTTY format.
Close the Authentication window by clicking on 'OK', and connect to the virtual machine by clicking on 'Login'.
The script that launches the GUI on every reboot is centrally located at /home/start-gui.sh. You can configure it with:
nano /home/start-gui.sh
The script is executed by a cron job as the root user. You can modify the cron job with:
sudo crontab -e
Change Password for the GUI Session:
To change the password for the GUI session, edit the start-gui.sh file and modify the password variable as desired. Ensure that your new password is at least 8 characters long. Passwords with fewer than 8 characters will fail. Then, reboot the instance. Please note that the password for the GUI session is different from the password for the Linux user.
Use Another User for the GUI Session:
To use a different user for the GUI session, create a new user with:
sudo adduser guiuser
Then, add the user to the sudo group with:
sudo usermod -aG wheel guiuser
Next, edit the start-gui.sh file, change the username variable, and reboot the instance.
Resolving RDP/VNC Connection Issues
Potential solutions to resolve your connection issues are:
Resolving Copy & Paste Issues
You may experience issues with copying and pasting to and from the virtual machine. Ensure that your local RDP and VNC clients support clipboard sharing. If the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste do not work, try using right-click to copy or right-click to paste.
The GUI Desktop Freezes
If your desktop environment gets stuck or freezes, ensure that your instance has sufficient memory. We recommend using an EC2 instance type with at least 4 GB of memory. Additionally, check if you are running low on available disk space, as this could also cause the GUI to freeze.
RDP Only Shows a Login Page
If you see the login page below, it means RDP couldn’t connect to the GUI. This can happen if the password is incorrect or there’s an issue with the GUI. Double-check that you’re entering the correct password, and if the problem continues, try rebooting the system.
Note: The keyboard layout on this login page is set to English. Special characters may appear differently because of your physical keyboard's layout. Since the password is the instance ID of your EC2 instance, keep in mind that the hyphen ("-") in the instance ID (e.g., "i-0abc...") may be in a different location on an English keyboard - it’s usually next to the "0" (zero) key on the right. We recommend setting the password directly in the RDP client (see the "Connect to GUI" section).
How can I cancel my subscription?
To cancel your subscription, follow these steps:
For more detailed instructions, visit the AWS Marketplace Buyer Guide at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/marketplace/latest/buyerguide/cancel-subscription.html.