chilcano / affordable-remote-desktop

Terraform and Packer scripts to create an affordable ( < 10 euros/month ) remote development desktop in AWS cloud.

Affordable Remote DevOps Desktop

Terraform scripts to create an affordable remote development desktop hosted in AWS Public Cloud and trying to use affordable cloud resources ( < 10 euros/month ).

Amazon webservices used

The AWS services used are:

1. EC2 Instance
   • Spot
   • m1.small (by default)
   • us-east-1 (by default)
2. AWS CloudWatch (free tier)
   • 2 Dashboard
   • 4 Metrics
   • 2 Alerts

Software pre-installed

I'm using Ubuntu server and on It I'm going to install/installed 3 type of software:

1. Ubuntu server with GUI enabled created from a custom AMI:
   • Ubuntu server AMI:
     • AMI Name chilcano/images/hvm-instance/ubuntu-bionic-18.04-amd64-gui and AMI Owner Chilcano (by default)
   • XFCE4 Desktop (no install the Xubuntu Desktop packages).
   • X2Go
2. Initial utilities:
   • git, awscli, jq, curl, etc.
   • Docker
   • Chromium
3. DevOps tools (manual installation):
   The installation of this will be through a bash script installer. During the Terraform execution, the install_devops_tpl.sh will download the devops_tools_v1.sh in the remote instance for you can execute it when you want it.

Getting started

Clone this repository

$ git clone https://github.com/chilcano/affordable-remote-desktop
$ cd affordable-remote-desktop

Execute Terraform plan

Create a default instance based on Chilcano's custom AMI with new EC2 Instance Type

The default process creates an EC2 instance based on m1.small and uses the Chilcano's customized public AMI (based on Ubuntu server). If you are going to use an EC2 Instance Type different such as t2.small or t2.medium, you have to consider increasing the bid for the EC2 Spot instance. These are the combinations that have worked:

$ terraform apply \ 
  -var node_name="devops0" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var remotedesktop_instance_type="t2.small"

The remotedesktop_spot_price by default is 0.01 and that has worked for m1.small and t2.small, however if you are going to use t2.medium, you should try to increase remotedesktop_spot_price. The minimum has worked for me is 0.014 in us-east-1 and 0.016 in eu-west-2.

$ terraform apply \
  -var node_name="devops0" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var remotedesktop_instance_type="t2.medium" \
  -var remotedesktop_spot_price="0.014" \
  -var region="us-east-1"

Using Chilcano's custom AMI with Ubuntu Focal 20.04, XFCE4 and X2Go Server

I've made public another custom AMI based on Ubuntu Focal 20.04, then let's go using it:

$ terraform apply \
  -var node_name="devops0" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var remotedesktop_instance_type="t2.medium" \
  -var ami_name_filter="chilcano/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-20.04-amd64-gui-*" \
  -var remotedesktop_spot_price="0.016" \
  -var region="eu-west-2"

Using another customized AMI

The default Terraform plan creates an EC2 instance using Chilcano's customized public AMI (based on Ubuntu server). This customized AMI has already XFCE4 and X2Go Server pre-installed. But if you want to use other AMI, you can do it, even if that new AMI doen't have XFCE4 and X2Go Server pre-installed.
The Terraform plan I shared here detects if the base AMI used to build the EC2 Instance has XFCE4 and X2Go Server pre-installed, if so Terraform will install both packages taking ~20 minutes or more.
For example, next Terraform plan execution will install both (XFCE4 and X2Go Server) packages because the ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-bionic-18.04-amd64-server AMI owned by 099720109477 (Ubuntu) doesn't include these packages.

$ terraform apply \
  -var node_name="devops0" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var ami_name_filter="ubuntu/images/hvm-ssd/ubuntu-focal-20.04-amd64-server-*" \
  -var ami_owner="099720109477" \
  -var remotedesktop_instance_type="t2.medium" \
  -var remotedesktop_spot_price="0.016" \
  -var region="eu-west-2"

Finally, if you want to create your customized AMI with XFCE4 and X2Go Server pre-installed, then you are lucky because I've shared Packer scripts to cook your own. Once created your custom AMI with XFCE4 and X2Go Server you can run Terraform in this way:

$ terraform apply \
  -var node_name="devops0" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var ami_name_filter="your-ami-name-filter" \
  -var ami_owner="your-ami-owner" 

Verifying the process

After a few minutes, connect to EC2 instance created above.

$  terraform output remotedesktop_fqdn
ec2-54-160-183-171.compute-1.amazonaws.com

$ ssh ubuntu@$(terraform output remotedesktop_fqdn) -i ~/.ssh/remotedevenv

// Checking Cloud-Init 
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ tail -f /var/log/cloud-init-output.log

// Checking the bash scripts created by Cloud-Init
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ ls -la /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 15 18:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 15 18:35 ..
-rwx------ 1 root root 2651 Apr 15 18:28 install_devops.sh
-rwx------ 1 root root 1149 Apr 15 18:28 install_gui.sh

The install_devops.sh and install_gui.sh were created by Terraform during provisioning, both bash scripts install and configure the DevOps tools and GUI tools respectively.

Checking configurations and versions installed

Immediately after you will get access to remote instance.

$ lsb_release -a

// Default Display Manager
$ cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager

$ ssh -V
$ apt list -a xfce4
$ x2goversion 
$ git --version
$ code --version
$ python3 --version
$ aws --version
$ terraform -v
$ docker --version
$ java --version
$ chromium-browser --version

Connect to the remote DevOps Desktop

We are going to use X2Go Client in a local Ubuntu PC.

Installing X2Go Client

If you are using Ubuntu, install X2Go Client is easy, just follow this commands.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:x2go/stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y x2goclient

If you are using Windows, OSX, Raspbian, Java, iOS (iPad) or Android, you have clients too:

• X2Go Client for Windows
• X2Go Client for Mac OSX

Configure X2Go Client

Below some screenshots if you want to know how looks like in Ubuntu 19.10. Before lets get the FQDN of EC2 instance.

chilcano@inti:~/git-repos/affordable-remote-desktop$ terraform output remotedesktop_fqdn
ec2-100-26-48-80.compute-1.amazonaws.com

Before all, You have to wait ~5 minutes (yes, It is too much and I'm going to fix it - see ToDo) after terraform apply. Then, open X2Go Client and enter the details about your EC2 Instance.

Also, you can run X2Go Client from terminal.

$ x2goclient --session=RemoteDevOps --hide --add-to-known-hosts

And finally here below the Remote DevOps Desktop.

Cleaning up

If you don't want incur charges when using AWS, I recommend remove completely recently created infrastructure.

$ terraform destroy \
  -var node_name="mtls01" \
  -var ssh_key="chilcan0" \
  -var developer_cidr_blocks="83.45.103.161/32" \
  -var region="eu-west-2"

Troubleshooting

Check the creation of AWS Resources

Check the creation of EC2 instance and debug the bash scripts.

// Checking Cloud-Init 
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ cat /var/log/cloud-init-output.log

// Checking the bash scripts created by Cloud-Init
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ ls -la /var/lib/cloud/instance/scripts/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 15 18:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 15 18:35 ..
-rwx------ 1 root root 2651 Apr 15 18:28 install_devops.sh
-rwx------ 1 root root 1149 Apr 15 18:28 install_gui.sh

Error: bash: x2golistsessions: command not found

chilcano@inti:~$ x2goclient --debug
....
x2go-DEBUG-../src/sshprocess.cpp:538> Have stderr only, something must be wrong.
x2go-DEBUG-../src/sshprocess.cpp:543> SSH finished: false - "bash: x2golistsessions: command not found " (0).
x2go-DEBUG-../src/onmainwindow.cpp:3861> "bash: x2golistsessions: command not found "
x2go-DEBUG-../src/onmainwindow.cpp:1527> Close event received.
...

The X2Go Server has not been installed properly. Once installed you can verify it in this way:

ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ x2goversion 
x2goserver: 4.1.0.0
x2goserver-common: 4.1.0.0
x2goserver-extensions: 4.1.0.0
x2goserver-fmbindings: 4.1.0.0
x2goserver-printing: 4.1.0.0
x2goserver-x2goagent: 3.5.99.16
x2goserver-xsession: 4.1.0.0

Error: Unable to locate package xubuntu-restricted-extra

E: Unable to locate package xubuntu-restricted-extra

XFCE4 has not been installed and Xubuntu (optional) core with all goodies.

apt-get install -y xfce4
apt-get install -y xubuntu-core xubuntu-restricted-addons xubuntu-restricted-extra

Installing and configuring UFW

ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ sudo ufw default deny incoming
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ sudo ufw enable
ubuntu@ip-10-0-100-4:~$ sudo ufw status
Status: active
Logging: on (low)
Default: deny (incoming), allow (outgoing), disabled (routed)
New profiles: skip

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
22/tcp (OpenSSH)           ALLOW IN    Anywhere
22/tcp (OpenSSH (v6))      ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)

Performance

Type Instance	Price	vCPU	Mem	Storage	Network	Perforamce
m1.small	~0.0040 USD	1	1.7 GB	160 GB	Low	2/10
t2.small	~0.0230 USD	1	2.0 GB	EBS only	Low-Moderate	3/10
t2.medium	~0.0464 USD	2	4.0 GB	EBS only	Low-Moderate	5/10

References

1. https://itsfoss.com/install-xfce-desktop-xubuntu
2. https://cepa.io/2018/08/05/building-an-ultimate-remote-linux-workstation
3. https://writing.frankmcpherson.net/computers/2018/11/09/virtual-desktop.html