Routing RDP Traffic

[TechCarnivore]

I have 2 Windows 2003 Servers that are remote. I need to troubleshoot them both through Remote desktop. How would I do this generally speaking? I have a Dynamic DNS account setup to forward to server #1, and in our linksys router have RDP traffic forwarding to server #1, but am unsure of what I need to do to have server #2 available via RDP since RDP traffic is being routed to our primary server.

Any ideas?

 

[Topkapi]

If you can VPN to the remote site you should then be able to RDP to both servers by IP.

 

[TechCarnivore]

Thanks for the suggestion. In concept would it be possible to use something like, dynamicDNSName:3389 to access the server or servers directly?
I'll try it and post my results.

 

[kmcferrin]

If you're using RDP you wouldn't need to specify port 3389, since that's what it uses by default. Other than that, it should work technically (for the one server that is configured to get RDP traffic from your Linksys), but it's not particularly secure. If you can set up a VPN first that would be a good idea.

If you don't go the VPN route, then RDP into the first server, then from that server RDP into the second server.

 

[lhuegele]

Well, if you have more than one external IP address, you could just NAT another IP address to the other server. Otherwise, the best way to do this is to use RDP on a different port on your second server. 3389 is the default. For server #2 you can use 3390 (or any port you want).

Assumptions:

- You have only one external IP address
- You have 2 servers that you need to access with RDP

To change the port that RDP listens on for connections you have to edit the registry on server #2. Here's the KB article that shows you how to do this.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759

Once the listen port is changed on server number 2, you would do like you said and put the port number after the server name/IP address

servernameort

Good luck,