How do I install GUI (graphical desktop) on Amazon EC2 instances running RHEL/Rocky Linux 8/9?

Notice

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Supported OS versions

The following versions are supported by Amazon DCV server

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 (x86_64 and arm64)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 (x86_64 and arm64)
• Rocky Linux 9 (x86_64 and arm64)
• Rocky Linux 8 (x86_64 and arm64)

While the steps may work on other Linux OSs that are based on RHEL distribution such as AlmaLinux, it is not supported.

System Requirements and Prerequisites

• EC2 instance with 2 GiB or more memory
• Attached security group allows inbound TCP and UDP port 8443 from your IP
• More than 3 GB free disk space to install graphical desktop components and DCV server
• Attached EC2 IAM role with the below policy. Replace region with your instance AWS Region code

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
       {
           "Effect": "Allow",
           "Action": "s3:GetObject",
           "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::dcv-license.region/*"
       }
    ]
}

Optional: Install SSM agent

Install SSM agent to enable Session Manager access. This requires EC2 instance to have attached IAM role with the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy

if (arch | grep -q x86); then
  sudo dnf install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
else
  sudo dnf install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_arm64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
fi

Install desktop environment and desktop manager

Install GNOME desktop and disable Wayland protocol

sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf groupinstall -y 'Server with GUI'
sudo dnf groupinstall -y GNOME
sudo sed -i '/^\[daemon\]/a WaylandEnable=false' /etc/gdm/custom.conf

Install DCV server

Install NICE DCV server, web client and virtual session support, and enable server daemon

cd /tmp
sudo rpm --import https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/NICE-GPG-KEY
OS_VERSION=$(. /etc/os-release;echo $VERSION_ID | sed -e 's/\..*//g')
curl -L -O https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/nice-dcv-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch).tgz
tar -xvzf nice-dcv-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch).tgz && cd nice-dcv-*-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch)
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-dcv-server-*.rpm
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-dcv-web-viewer-*.rpm
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-xdcv-*.rpm
sudo systemctl enable dcvserver

Configure DCV server

Configure console session, enable session storage and QUIC transport protocol

if (cat /etc/os-release | grep -q Rocky); then
  USER="rocky"
else
  USER="ec2-user"
fi
sudo sed -i "/^\[session-management\/automatic-console-session/a owner=\"$USER\"\nstorage-root=\"%home%\"" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#create-session/create-session/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#enable-quic-frontend=true/enable-quic-frontend=true/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf

GPU instance

If you are using a GPU instance, install and configure GPU drivers

Non GPU instance

For other instance types, install and configure XDummy driver

sudo dnf install -y xorg-x11-drv-dummy
sudo tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf > /dev/null << EOF
Section "Device"
    Identifier "DummyDevice"
    Driver "dummy"
    Option "UseEDID" "false"
    VideoRam 512000
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "DummyMonitor"
    HorizSync   5.0 - 1000.0
    VertRefresh 5.0 - 200.0
    Option "ReducedBlanking"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "DummyScreen"
    Device "DummyDevice"
    Monitor "DummyMonitor"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport 0 0
        Depth 24
        Virtual 4096 2160
    EndSubSection
EndSection
EOF

Open firewall port

Open firewall ports if firewall daemon is installed

if (systemctl list-units | grep -q firewalld); then
  sudo systemctl stop firewalld
  sudo firewall-offline-cmd --add-port 8443/tcp
  sudo firewall-offline-cmd --add-port 8443/udp
  sudo systemctl start firewalld
fi

Restart X server and DCV server

sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target && sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target
sudo systemctl stop dcvserver && sudo systemctl start dcvserver

Access graphical desktop environment

Set user password

Specify a strong password for login user

Rocky

sudo passwd rocky

RHEL and Alma

sudo passwd ec2-user

Clients

DCV offers Windows, Linux, macOS and web browser clients.

HTML 5 client for web browser access is at https://<EC2-IP>:8443 (where <EC2-IP> is your EC2 instance IP address). Native clients supports QUIC and can be downloaded from https://www.amazondcv.com/

Login with your configured password

Web browser client

Install on EC2 launch

To automate install when launching a new EC2 instance, you can use the below user data script.

#!/bin/bash
if (arch | grep -q x86); then
  sudo dnf install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_amd64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
else
  sudo dnf install -y https://s3.amazonaws.com/ec2-downloads-windows/SSMAgent/latest/linux_arm64/amazon-ssm-agent.rpm
fi

sudo dnf update -y
sudo dnf groupinstall -y 'Server with GUI'
sudo dnf groupinstall -y GNOME
sudo sed -i '/^\[daemon\]/a WaylandEnable=false' /etc/gdm/custom.conf

cd /tmp
sudo rpm --import https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/NICE-GPG-KEY
OS_VERSION=$(. /etc/os-release;echo $VERSION_ID | sed -e 's/\..*//g')
curl -L -O https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/nice-dcv-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch).tgz
tar -xvzf nice-dcv-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch).tgz && cd nice-dcv-*-el$OS_VERSION-$(arch)
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-dcv-server-*.rpm
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-dcv-web-viewer-*.rpm
sudo dnf install -y ./nice-xdcv-*.rpm
sudo systemctl enable dcvserver

if (cat /etc/os-release | grep -q Rocky); then
  USER="rocky"
else
  USER="ec2-user"
fi
sudo sed -i "/^\[session-management\/automatic-console-session/a owner=\"$USER\"\nstorage-root=\"%home%\"" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#create-session/create-session/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#enable-quic-frontend=true/enable-quic-frontend=true/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf

sudo dnf install -y xorg-x11-drv-dummy
sudo tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf > /dev/null << EOF
Section "Device"
    Identifier "DummyDevice"
    Driver "dummy"
    Option "UseEDID" "false"
    VideoRam 512000
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "DummyMonitor"
    HorizSync   5.0 - 1000.0
    VertRefresh 5.0 - 200.0
    Option "ReducedBlanking"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "DummyScreen"
    Device "DummyDevice"
    Monitor "DummyMonitor"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport 0 0
        Depth 24
        Virtual 4096 2160
    EndSubSection
EndSection
EOF

if (systemctl list-units | grep -q firewalld); then
  sudo systemctl stop firewalld
  sudo firewall-offline-cmd --add-port 8443/tcp
  sudo firewall-offline-cmd --add-port 8443/udp
  sudo systemctl start firewalld
fi

sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target && sudo systemctl isolate graphical.target
sudo systemctl stop dcvserver && sudo systemctl start dcvserver

Set ec2-user / rocky password after installation is compete

CloudFormation template

To quickly get up and running with DCV for internal testing, you can use CloudFormation template at DCV CloudFormation page and aws-samples - Github

Additional information

Refer to DCV documentation site