Headless Remote Access Under Wayland with KDE Plasma

headless_remote_access_under_wayland_with_kde_plasma.md

🖥️ Headless Remote Access Under Wayland with KDE Plasma

📚 Source

Headless remote access under Wayland - KDE Discuss

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This is a workaround to enable headless remote access to a KDE Plasma system running on Wayland.

🔍 Background

• Plasma supports remote desktop access via PipeWire and desktop portals.
• However, the RDP server only runs once a graphical session is active.
• The default login manager SDDM does not support remote graphical login.

✅ Goal

Allow headless access via VNC to SDDM and then RDP into the KDE Plasma session.

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⚙️ Setup Steps

1. Install sway + wayvnc

sudo pacman -S --needed sway wayvnc

or your distro’s equivalent

2. Create a sway config for SDDM

File: /etc/sway/sddm_config

xwayland disable
exec wayvnc

3. Configure SDDM to use sway instead of kwin_wayland

File: /etc/sddm.conf.d/10-wayland.conf

[General]
DisplayServer=wayland
GreeterEnvironment=QT_WAYLAND_SHELL_INTEGRATION=layer-shell

[Wayland]
# Default: CompositorCommand=kwin_wayland --drm --no-lockscreen --no-global-shortcuts --locale1
# Override with sway:
CompositorCommand=sway -c /etc/sway/sddm_config

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🧪 Usage

1. Connect via VNC to the sway-powered SDDM greeter.

   • Recommended: tunnel via SSH for security.

2. Log in to the KDE Plasma session.

3. Connect via RDP to the now-running graphical session.

It’s a two-step process, but works reliably in a headless environment.

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