How To Set Up GUI On Amazon EC2 Ubuntu server?(101/285 technotes for 2015).

This was published in http://bit.ly/1LaP9tT. Based on the comments and minor changes (maked in bold) the below worked for me.

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This can be done. Following are the steps to setup the GUI

* Create new user with password login

sudo useradd -m awsgui
sudo passwd awsgui
sudo usermod -aG admin awsgui

su - awsgui

sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config # edit line "PasswordAuthentication" to yes

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

* Setting up ui based ubuntu machine on AWS.

* In security group open port 5901. Then ssh to the server instance. Run following commands to install ui and vnc server:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install vnc4server

* Then run following commands and enter the login password for vnc connection:

vncserver

vncserver -kill :1

vim awsgui/.vnc/xstartup

* replace the text with the text below (make sure u have a copy)

#!/bin/sh
def
export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

gnome-panel &
gnome-settings-daemon &
metacity &
nautilus &
gnome-terminal &

* When you’re done, hit Ctrl + C on the keyboard, type :wq and hit Enter.

* Restart the server

* Then start vnc server again.

vncserver

In the vnc client, give public DNS plus “:1” (e.g. www.example.com:1) or private ip address. Enter the vnc login password. Make sure to use a normal connection. Don’t use the key files.