How to start a Chrome Remote Desktop session on Linux

Google's chrome browser has a pretty good remote desktop application for chromebooks called "Chrome Remote Desktop" (CRD). CRD supports persistent sessions to Windows and Mac hosts, but for Linux hosts it has to be reconfigured on a per-connection basis. To set up a CRD session on Linux, you first need to have a remote desktop session already open (eg. VNC) in order to open a chrome browser and start the server. It then gives you a 12 digit access code to type into the CRD client (eg. on the chromebook) to complete the connection. That access code only lasts for the duration of a single connection; any interruption and you are back to square one. This frequently provokes a chicken-and-egg situation, where one needs to have a remote connection to start one.

Here I provide a work-around that should make it easy and safe. It works by requiring the user to connect first to the host using a ssh client and running a script which starts the CRD service and prints the access code to the ssh screen. One swipe of the mouse and a paste into the CRD client access code field and the connection is complete. This is really no different from what one does in windows to create a secure tunnel over ssh and then connecting vnc client over the tunnel. In the case of CRD, one is relying on the secure sockets layer (https) to provide the same level of security of the session data as was provided by the ssh tunnel.