Setup and installation of 'Browser based Ubuntu 24.04 GUI Desktop accessible via HTTPS' on Azure

This section describes how to launch and connect to ‘Browser based Ubuntu 24.04 GUI Desktop accessible via HTTPS’ VM solution on Azure.

1. Open Browser based Ubuntu 24.04 GUI Desktop accessible via HTTPS VM listing on Azure Marketplace.

2. Click on Get It Now

• Login with your credentials, provide the details here. Once done click on Continue.

• It will take you to the Product details page. Click on Create.

• Select a Resource group for your virtual machine

• Select a Region where you want to launch the VM(such as East US)

• Note: If you see “This image is not compatible with selected security type. To keep trusted launch virtual machines, select a compatible image. Otherwise change your security type back to Standard” error message below the Image name as shown in the screenshot below then please change the Security type to Standard.

• Optionally change the number of cores and amount of memory.

Select the Authentication type as Password and enter Username as ubuntu and Password of your choice.

• Optionally change the OS disk size and its type.

• Optionally change the network and subnetwork names. Be sure that whichever network you specify has ports 22 (for ssh) and 443 (for HTTPS) exposed.

The VM comes with the preconfigured NSG rules. You can check them by clicking on Create New option available under the security group option.

• Optionally go to the Management, Advanced and Tags tabs for any advance settings you want for the VM.
• Click on Review + create and then click on Create when you are done.
  Virtual Machine will begin deploying.

3. A summary page displays when the virtual machine is successfully created. Click on Go to resource link to go to the resource page. It will open an overview page of virtual machine.

4. If you want to update your password then open up the left navigation pane, select Run command, select RunShellScript and enter following command to change the password of the vm .

sudo echo ubuntu:yourpassword | chpasswd

5. Now the password for ubuntu user is set, you can SSH to the VM. To do so, first note the public IP address of the VM from VM details page as highlighted below

6. Open putty, paste the IP address and click on Open.

login as ubuntu and provide the password for ‘ubuntu’ user.

7. You can connect to the VM’s desktop environment from any Browser. To do so first note the external IP of the VM from VM details page as highlighted below.

8. Then Go to your favorite browser and enter the IP address as https://public_ip_of_vm and hit enter. Make sure to use HTTPS and not HTTP in the URL. The browser will show you SSL warning message. Click on Advance, Accept the risk and continue.

9. After accepting the ssl certification warning it will show you the below NOVNC screen. Click on Connect button.

10. On Login screen , enter ubuntu as user name and password of ubuntu user you set in above steps.

Note: If after entering the ubuntu user and password it takes you back to the Connect screen then please click on Connect and enter the username and password again. It should connect you successfully.

11. Now you are connected to out of box ‘Browser based Ubuntu 24.04 GUI Desktop’ environment via browser.

12. By default , resolution of GUI screen is set to 1024x600. If you want to change this resolution you can update the perboot file available in this VM. For that open terminal and run below commands.

cd /var/lib/cloud/scripts/per-boot/

sudo vi  2404-ubuntu-browser-perboot.sh

13. It will open a perboot script. Update the -geometry 1024x600 flag and set it as per your requirement or you can completely remove this flag from the script. Save the changes by pressing ESC Key then :wq. Make sure to Reboot the VM after making changes in the perboot file. If you completely remove the -geometry flag then it will set the default resolution for your Ubuntu GUI desktop as shown below.

14. There are many settings in the noVNC interface, including local cursor, scaling, clipping mode for viewport panning and automatic reconnection. To use various noVNC settings and options, open control bar by clicking on arrow in the middle left corner.

15. Under settings menu , you can set the desktop scaling as none, local or remote.

16. A solution for clipboard transfer is available. Text copied in the remote desktop will appear in the clipboard box in noVNC’s interface. You can then copy the text from that box to access it in your local clipboard. Any text put into the clipboard box will be sent to the remote clipboard as well.

17. You can also get the full screen mode by clicking the fullscreen option from the control bar as shown below.

18. To disconnect the session, simple click the disconnect button from control bar.