Very, Very odd problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Larry Waldman
  • Start date Start date
L

Larry Waldman

Ok, so like many people I have many computers in my house, all behind
one router with one IP address. To be able to use remote desktop with
my computers, I have done the following:

- enabled remote desktop on all the machines
- installed remote desktop web on one of my machines
- set up port forwarding on my router to take port 6666 (some
arbitrary number) and forward it to port 80 on the machine with RD web
set up on it.

To access the remote desktop, when i am at my house and on the LAN, I
simply go to (let's assume my external IP -- the one of the router --
is 5.5.5.5) http://5.5.5.5:6666/tsweb. This works just fine, and
then, for the server I want to connect to, I enter 192.168.2.82
(assuming .82 is the computer I want to connect to). This, again
works fine.

The problem occurs when I try to do the EXACT same procedure while I
am not on my network at home. I make it all the way through, type in
192.168.2.82, and I get a message saying 'could not connect to client.
there may be network problems, etc...'.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks!

LFW
 
This doesn't work. Many folks imagine that the connection is being made
between the webserver and the target host machine. However, this isn't what
is happening.

Your remote client machine is downloading an ActiveX control from the web
server, and that ActiveX control is what is making the connection, directly
from your remote client.

So--the private IP address behind your router doesn't mean anything useful
to the name resolution available at your remote location, and it doesn't
connect.

It is possible to make this work under some circumstances, with some effort.

If you set up separate ports on the router (3390, etc) forwarded to 3389 on
the particular machines behind the router,. you can then create a custom web
page that will allow access to those machines directly, and Jeffery Randow
has provided such a page:
-------------------------------------------------------------
There is a customized version available for download at
http://www.remotenetworktechnology.com that will allow you to connect
to alternate ports (see
http://www.remotenetworktechnology.com/Default.aspx?tabid=62) once you
get the port forwarding corrected...

Jeffrey Randow (Windows Networking & Smart Display MVP)
(e-mail address removed)
 
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