How to set up a Debian 9 Strech server with Xfce for use without a monitor using xserver-xorg-video-dummy and access it via TeamViewer

There are a lot of similar tutorials on the Internet, but I was struggling with the correct order of actions or some other problem, because I always got stuck after sending the login dialog to the system.So I wrote a step-by-step tutorial.

By the way, you can try this whole tutorial in a virtual server before you start working on a real server.

1 Minimal Debian 9 Stretch Installation

To start with, you need a minimal system, so just the "standard system utilities" and probably the "SSH server".

No need to install "Debian desktop environment" or Xfce.

2) Dummy video driver xserver-xorg-video-dummy

Since we won't have any monitor connected, we'll install the dummy package.

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-dummy

This will install all the necessary packages to run the X-server.

Now we need to set up a dummy display - in the /etc/X11/xorg file.conf you need to write the following:

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
   Driver   "dummy"
   VideoRam   16384
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier  "Configured Monitor"
   HorizSync   5.0 - 1000.0
   VertRefresh 5.0 - 200.0
   Modeline "1600x900" 33.92 1600 1632 1760 1792 900 921 924 946
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier  "Default Screen"
   Monitor     "Configured Monitor"
   Device    "Configured Video Device"
   DefaultDepth 24
   SubSection "Display"
     Viewport 0 0
     Depth 24
       Virtual 1600 900
   EndSubSection
EndSection

You can probably find other configurations for different resolutions on the internet, or you can find a different configuration for different resolutions.

3) Installing the Xfce graphical environment

You can obviously install whatever you want (https://wiki.debian.org/DesktopEnvironment), but Xfce is small and simple, so it's suitable for running on a server.

apt-get install xfce4

This will install all the necessary packages to run the X-server, including lightdm. Recommended additional packages for Xfce are xfce4-terminal, mousepad (editor) ... I also disable Screen Locker (Applications > Settings > Session and Startup).

4) Installing TeamViewer 14

The .deb installation package is available for download here https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux/, as well as a link to System requirements & Installation notes. It's not rocket science, but it's important not to do it in the root directory, but for example in /opt:

cd /opt
apt install ./teamviewer_amd64.deb

During the installation, the repository for TeamViewer /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teamviewer will be added.list Since I don't want automatic updates, this repo can simply be disabled

teamviewer repo disable

Further commands can be found using teamviewer -help, other important ones are

teamviewer daemon enable
teamviewer license accept
teamviewer passwd [PASSWD]
teamviewer info

5) Reboot and test connection

After rebooting the machine, we can try to log in using TeamViewer - we know the session ID and password, so the login dialog should appear. Once logged in, we should see Xfce.

6) Install VMware player or VirtualBox

Nothing complicated:

• https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox
• https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2053973

But before that, install

apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

7) Autologin

I still like to have the user automatically tasked after reboot, and also have the virtual machines start automatically.

vi /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf

Lines need to be added here

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-user=user
autologin-user-timeout=0

And autostart applications can be set in Applications >> Settings > Session and Startup

In conclusion

As usual, once you know the way, it's not a big deal. Still, there may be a snag in each of the points above, so once again - it's better to try it out in a virtual first, then on the server. Thanks to this, one does not waste time and can start working remotely.