How to use Remote Desktop Connection with your Thinkpad

First, let me preface this by saying I by no means claim to be "the expert" or to have "the most secure" method of running remote desktop connection, but I figured I'd post this to see if anyone could use it. As a thinkpad user I find one of the most useful features about being mobile with a great laptop is to have remote access to my home desktop, servers, and even other workstations I use. Remote Desktop Connection is a great freebie to use with your Thinkpad.

What is Remote Desktop Connection? It is a multi channel remote access solution. It is also a free way for many users to connect to their local machine when on the road.

Step 1. Security

You need to think about the security ramifications of opening up your home network to the outside world (the "Internet"). I personally believe the risk is minimal, but it is a consideration. Also, this works best if you have a router with a SPI (stateful packet inspection) firewall that you can control which ports you are forwarding from the WAN side to the LAN side.

Step 2. Setup your host machine

A typical scenario is to want to connect to a desktop while on the road, and as such the first thing to do is setup the host machine (the machine you are going to connect to). The first thing I would so is assign a "static IP" address to the host machine. This insures that the endpoint on the LAN side does not change.

Your thinkpad (remote) --> Internet --> Your router at home (WAN IP address) --> Your desktop / home compuer (LAN (Static) IP)

For this to work the WAN IP (your router's IP on Internet side needs to be known as well as the destination LAN IP (your desktop). Imagine addressing a letter the WAN IP is the ZIP, and the LAN IP is the street number and address.

I won't go into detail about how to setup a Static IP, but it isn't difficult. One can google it, and probably find a number of sites that will help with that.
Once your Host machine has a static IP the next step is to enable Remote Desktop Connections.

Under Vista goto Control Panels -- > System --> Remote Settings
You need to enable option 2, or 3.
Option 2 is probably if the host is Vista and the remote is XPP;
Option 3 is probably best if Vista to Vista (more secure), but less compatible with older O/S's.

The last step is to allow connections via your software firewall if you have one on your desktop; you need to open up ports 3389 and 80; the protocol RDC uses is TCP. You do not need UDP or both open just use the TCP.

Your host machine is ready to accept connections.

Step 3. Forwarding TCP ports from your Router to your Desktop

You need to login into your router in my case it is a Linksys WRT54G version 2(with DD-WRT firmware).

Take note of the WAN IP (write it down you'll need it later)

Then click on Port Forwarding (in DD-WRT it is under Applications / Gaming), but your router will probably vary.

Here you need to forward TCP ports 80, and 3389 to your STATIC IP address on the LAN side (i.e. 192.168.1.250).

Add an entry for both ports -- you will probably be asked to name them (I picked RDC). Click apply / save.

Step 4. Setup your Remote machine (the thinkpad)

Find 'remote desktop connection'

You will be asked to enter in the ip address to the right of where it says computer name. (this is the WAN IP address from the router).

It will ask for username and password (these are your local host credentials). For example on the desktop I could be steve with password of yellow. This is what you would enter on the credentials page.

If all went well you should be connected.

Step 5. It doesn't work -- there is a possibility your ISP is blocking ports, or we made a mistake with an IP address.

I hope this helps. Good luck, and this is a great feature for remote access and its free!

Phil

 

Funny you should mention you have DD-WRT. If you have that you can set up a VPN host on the router then use any windows to VPN in and then use RDC. It's more secure since the data between the remote and the router is encrypted by a 128bit tunnel.

All you have to do is set up the DD-WRT router to give the host a static IP based on MAC. Rememeber this Internal IP because DNS res is kinda wonky with DD-WRT and VPN.

You can make it even simpler if you go to no-ip.org and set up a domain and you just need to use the domain. Thus if you don't have a static IP you can can still do this. Set up your acct at no-ip.org set up your DD-WRT router to be the client for no-ip.org and bam.

Just set up your VPN connection in windows to connect to eg. myvpn.no-ip.org. enter your VPN info. Once connected fire up RDC and then enter the IP of the host and you're in.

 

Yeah I know I never got the DD-WRT to work right with it. Admittedly it was on earlier builds of the firmware, but it might be worth the look at again. I do not have anything sensitive or critical on that box. I do connect through a VPN to any sensitive machines.