I often like to work remote using a lightweight computer that is connected to a (remote) beefy server. I tried to follow this guide for creating a remote Linux workstation on a VPS.

Here’s how I modified the guide and dealt with errors.

X2Go Server configuration

First, I installed i3 instead of xfce4:

apt install i3

Next, I created an ~/.xinitrc:

#!/bin/sh
exec i3

and made it executable with chmod +x ~/.xinitrc.

Next, I copied over the default i3 config file:

cp /etc/i3/config ~/.config/i3/config

I made sure to start x2go on my server:

service x2goserver start

I edited ~/.profile. I commented out the last line which said mesg n || true and replaced it with tty -s && mesg n. Activate it with source .bashrc.

X2Go client configuration

For the session type, I selected “Custom desktop” and for the command I put /usr/bin/i3.

Frustratingly, I still had issues with the ssh keys.

I had some issues, though. I would be able to ssh into my host through the cli, but whenever I tried to connect via the x2go client it would prompt me for the password 3 times and throw an error,

Access denied. Authentication that can continue:
publickey

Finally, the solution was to delete the X2go session entry and retype the information from scratch.