Cisco ASA WebVPN - port forward or "smart tunnel" for RDP? 1

[wytcld]

We've got systems behind a Cisco ASA with WebVPN running. We're not happy with the performance of the ActiveX or Java RDP plugins, and would like to take the alternate route of either port forwarding or "smart tunneling" to use the native Windows RDP client instead. I've seen several reports that this can work well with port forwarding at the Cisco, and one mention here about it also working with the newer alternative Cisco dubs a "smart tunnel." I haven't found where Cisco really defines what their "smart tunnel" consists of. To my mind any VPN is a sort of tunnel.

In any case, if both of these work okay, we'd be happy with either. If one works decidedly better, we'd like to know. Since the Cisco, while dedicated to our use, is administered by a hosting provider with staff of limited patience for trial-and-error, we'll also be ahead in the game if we can find a fairly exact recipe to pass on to them on setting up the Cisco part for the one option or another. So far in a few hours of searching Cisco's docs and teh Google, there's more hand waving than precise step-by-step recipes for this. I'm sure it would make more sense if we had a Cisco at hand for trial-and-error. We don't though. So if anyone has pointers on what to ask the admins at our host to do for either port forwarding or a "smart tunnel" to use Window's mstsc/RDP, I'll be thankful.

 

[unclerico]

please re-post in the Cisco ASA forum

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)

 

[wytcld]

Cisco ASA forum? I don't see that under Networking here. What else could this networking device be classed under? I'd be happy to cross post to that if I knew where it was. Meanwhile the ASA is (among other features) a router, port forwarding and tunneling are routing operations....

Happy to report we've now got the basic port forwarding setup working for RDP. So far so good, but it may take extra tricks to get printing and file transfers working across it. From what I can make out Cisco's "smart tunneling" is specific to the client application, rather than the port, in a way that requires each client application that can accomplish the function desired be separately registered on the ASA. Haven't been able to get a clear picture of what the extra trouble in registering specific applications buys you.

 

[unclerico]

forum1598

you don't have to tell me what an ASA is, what routing is, what port forwarding is, or what tunneling is.

I hate all Uppercase... I don't want my groups to seem angry at me all the time! =)
- ColdFlame (vbscript forum)