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TheCloudlessSky
Asked: 2010-10-07 06:03:30 +0800 CST

How to setup Remote Desktop to computers via subdomain?

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I have 1 external IP for my network and a FQDN (ex: mycompany.com). Currently to connect to multiple computers on my network I change the RDP port via registry.

For example to connect to one server, I have mycompnay.com:3390 and use my router to forward the port to the right host.

Ideally I'd like to be able to type servername.mycompany.com and route to the appropriate machine.

I have a "central server" using Server 2008 R2 if it helps. Is it possible to easily do what I'm trying to achieve?

windows-server-2008 remote-desktop remote-access

5 Answers

  1. I would suggest setting up a VPN into your network, and then simply accessing it as you would from within the network.

    This hase the advantages of:

    • Simplicity
    • Encryption
    • Exposing fewer ports to the internet

    There are many options for doing this. I have used OpenVPN installed on a server, as well as DD-WRT (which contains OpenVPN) firmware directly on my router.

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  2. Best Answer

    Have you considered setting up a Terminal Services Gateway? It is basically a service that will proxy RDP traffic into your network. You can setup various policies to allow some users to access specific computers.

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  3. I don't know of a way to do this. The problem is you only have on external ip address and regardless of FQDN, everything has to resolve to that ip address, which can't be directed to more than one internal ip address for the same port\service. What you could do is RDP to the server and then RDP to the workstations from the server session. Other than that you could look at installing something like LogMeIn on the computers you want to be able to access directly.

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  4. I favour Brent's answer, to be honest, but you could have a terminal server that you can connect to from outside and then connect from your desktop session on that to other hosts inside your network. Not pretty, but it works.

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  5. I agree with the VPN, suggestion but hardware VPN isn't too expensive e.g. Netgear FVS338 currently lists for under $200 on Amazon, but there are other similar and cheaper.

    I don't remember if licenses came with the firewall, but VPN client software is sold separately. I never attempted to configure some VPN software (or Windows built-in VPN software) to connect via VPN, I had another VPN router. If you have branch offices that need to talk to each other, making a persistent VPN between them could be the way to do.

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