Overview

This article suggests how you can install GUI (Graphical User Interface) on Amazon EC2 instances running RHEL/Rocky Linux 8/9, and access it using Amazon DCV remote display protocol.

Notice

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

• 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 RHEL compatible Linux OSs such as AlmaLinux, it is not supported.

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

Optional: Install SSM agent

Install SSM agent (if not installed) to enable Session Manager access. This requires EC2 instance to have attached IAM role with the AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore policy

if (! systemctl list-units | grep -q amazon-ssm-agent); then
  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
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
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

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

Console session XDummy driver

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

Configure DCV server

Configure console session and enable session storage

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

GPU instance

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

Open firewall port

Open firewall ports if firewall daemon is installed

if (which firewall-offline-cmd); 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

Set user password

Specify a strong password for login user

Rocky

sudo passwd rocky

RHEL

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
if (! systemctl list-units | grep -q amazon-ssm-agent); then
  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
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
sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

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 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 (which firewall-offline-cmd); 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

Do set ec2-user or rocky user password

Additional information

Refer to DCV documentation