Tested on KDE/X11 & GNOME/X11. Wayland is not supported because you have to log out local Wayland session in order to connect remotely or else you get only a black screen. That defeats my purpose to continue work I left open at home while I am out. If I have to logout, then I cannot let my PC do something useful, for example, video rendering.
Quoted from https://github.com/BromTeque/Google_Chrome_Remote_Desktop_Persisten Ubuntu supports multiple display sessions, and Chrome Remote Desktop will (by default) leverage this feature. That means you can be connected on the machine itself, and have several applications open; when you connect over remote desktop, it will start a new session (without your existing state). Conversely, if you start doing something remotely, then try to finish it up on the machine locally, all the apps you had open won't appear on the local display. As well as being a bit annoying, this can cause all sorts of nasty bugs (e.g the most recent state in one session clobbering the other during shutdown; launching applications in one session and they actually appear in the other... it's a real mess). Follow these steps to override the "smart" functionality, and just have a single session that's shared between local and remote access.
There are probably some very clever reasons to run it the default way, and changing it like this is less secure - for example, if you unlock the machine remotely over RDP, the machine unlocks on the local session too - someone with physical access could see your mouse moving around, watch what you were typing or even take over with a keyboard / mouse. ...
- Modify
configuration.nix
imports = [
# existing imports
...
./<your-path>/chrome-remote-desktop.nix
];
nixpkgs.overlays = [
# existing overlays
...
(_final: prev: {
chrome-remote-desktop = prev.callPackage ./<your-path>/package.nix {};
})
];
service.chrome-remote-desktop = {
enable = true;
user = "<your-user-name>";
};-
Run
nixos-rebuild switch -
Make a symlink to
/opt/google/chrome-remote-desktop
sudo rm -f /opt/google/chrome-remote-desktop; sudo ln -s /$(echo $(readlink $(readlink /etc/chromium/NativeMessagingHosts/com.google.chrome.remote_desktop.json)) | cut -d/ -f 2,3,4)/opt/google/chrome-remote-desktop /opt/google/chrome-remote-desktop
-
Open Chromium/Google Chrome, log in your google account, and install Chrome Remote Desktop extention from https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/chrome-remote-desktop/inomeogfingihgjfjlpeplalcfajhgai
-
Navigate to https://remotedesktop.google.com/access, scroll down to the bottom and click "Turn on" set up remote access on this device.
-
Name your host, set up a secret pin.
-
Confirm that you have a file
host#<hash>.jsonin~/.config/chrome-remote-desktop/ -
Run
xhost +. You will have to find a way to do this every time you login. I am still seaching. -
Restart chrome-remote-desktop service.
sudo systemctl restart chrome-remote-desktop@<your-user-name>.service
- Refresh https://remotedesktop.google.com/access, your host should be shown as "Online".
journalctl -b -u chrome-remote-desktop@<your-user-name> is very useful to debug. Additional hints may be obtained by running Chromium/Google Chrome from command line to see error messages.
If Chromium/Google Chrome complains that it cannot find a script file, it is likely that you have not created the symlink mention in item 3.
If journalctl gives error about MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-x or cannot get authorization, one possible cause is you forget to do run xhost + in item 8.