Overview

This article suggests how you can install GUI (Graphical User Interface) on Amazon EC2 instances running Amazon Linux 2, and access it using Amazon DCV remote display protocol.

Note: this article applies to AL2 only. For Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023), refer to this article

Notice

Support for Amazon Linux 2 will end on 2026-06-30

Your use of DCV is subject to DCV end user license agreement

Other options

To quickly get up and running with DCV for internal testing, you can use CloudFormation template at DCV CloudFormation page.

AMIs preconfigured with graphical desktop environment are available from AWS Marketplace.

You can also consider using amazon-ec2-nice-dcv-samples CloudFormation templates to provision your own EC2 instances with graphical desktop environment, DCV server and other features such as custom resolution, multi-monitor support and GPU driver installation.

Requirements

Supported OS versions

The following versions are supported by Amazon DCV server

• Amazon Linux 2 (x86_64)
• Amazon Linux 2 (arm64)

EC2 instance 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. Alternatively, attach AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess managed policy.

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

Installing DCV

Install desktop environment and desktop manager

Install GNOME desktop

sudo yum install -y gdm gnome-session gnome-classic-session gnome-session-xsession
sudo yum install -y xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 xorg-x11-drivers 
sudo yum install -y gnome-terminal gnu-free-fonts-common gnu-free-mono-fonts gnu-free-sans-fonts gnu-free-serif-fonts
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

Install DCV server

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

cd /tmp
sudo rpm --import https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/NICE-GPG-KEY
curl -L -O https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/nice-dcv-amzn2-$(arch).tgz
tar -xvzf nice-dcv-amzn2-$(arch).tgz && cd nice-dcv-*-amzn2-$(arch)
sudo yum install -y ./nice-dcv-server-*.rpm
sudo yum install -y ./nice-dcv-web-viewer-*.rpm
sudo yum install -y ./nice-xdcv-*.rpm
sudo systemctl enable dcvserver

Console session XDummy driver

Install and configure XDummy driver

sudo yum 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

Configure DCV server

Configure console session and enable session storage

sudo sed -i "/^\[session-management\/automatic-console-session/a owner=\"ec2-user\"\nstorage-root=\"%home%\"" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#create-session/create-session/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf

GPU instance

If you are using a GPU instance, you can install and configure GPU driver

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

Set user password

Specify a strong password for login user

sudo passwd ec2-user

Access graphical desktop environment

Clients

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

You can connect to DCV server using web browser client at https://<EC2-IP>:8443 (where <EC2-IP> is your EC2 instance IP address). Native clients support additional features and can be downloaded from Amazon DCV site. Do ensure that EC2 instance security group allow inbound TCP and UDP 8443 from your IP

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
sudo yum install -y gdm gnome-session gnome-classic-session gnome-session-xsession
sudo yum install -y xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 xorg-x11-drivers 
sudo yum install -y gnome-terminal gnu-free-fonts-common gnu-free-mono-fonts gnu-free-sans-fonts gnu-free-serif-fonts
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

cd /tmp
sudo rpm --import https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/NICE-GPG-KEY
curl -L -O https://d1uj6qtbmh3dt5.cloudfront.net/nice-dcv-amzn2-$(arch).tgz
tar -xvzf nice-dcv-amzn2-$(arch).tgz && cd nice-dcv-*-amzn2-$(arch)
sudo yum install -y ./nice-dcv-server-*.rpm
sudo yum install -y ./nice-dcv-web-viewer-*.rpm
sudo yum install -y ./nice-xdcv-*.rpm
sudo systemctl enable dcvserver

sudo sed -i "/^\[session-management\/automatic-console-session/a owner=\"ec2-user\"\nstorage-root=\"%home%\"" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf
sudo sed -i "s/^#create-session/create-session/g" /etc/dcv/dcv.conf

sudo yum 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

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

Do set ec2-user user password

Additional information

Refer to DCV documentation