Vonage adaptor, LinkSys router and Remote Desktop Connection

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

Hi, I have problem setting up Windows Desktop Connection on my network which I think it is due to Vonage adaptop that is in the network and probably I'm not setiing it up correctly.
Here is more info about my system setup and models:

Linksys Modem (BEFCMU10) --> Vonage V-Portal --> Linksys router (WRT54GS) --> My PC (ethernet connection) and laptop (wireless connection).

I went to my router control panel (192.168.1.1) --> "Applications
& Gaming" --> "Port Range Forward" and entered port 3389 to be forwarded to my PC IP which is 192.168.1.xyz.

Then I went to my Vonage control panel (192.196.15.1) --> Advanced setting --> and I enabled the port forwarding for 3389.

Then I returned to my Windows 7 PC and enabled the remote desktop connection to be able to connect to all versions of software.

I used a laptop to check the system, but it was not able to connect to my PC.

What I'm I missing here to enable the RDC on my PC?
Thanks

Posts: 656 · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:41 am Post subject:

1) When you logged into the V-Portal and configured port forwarding, to what IP address did you configure this for? This must be the IP that your Linksys router has on it's WAN port.

With that said, you should make sure that the WAN port of the Linksys router has a static IP (192.168.15.2).

You also said you tested this from a laptop. Was this laptop on the same local network as the PC hosting the connection or were you using the internet from somewhere else?

For connection type issues like this, you should first confirm you can connect to the Remote Desktop from a computer on the same local area network by using the IP address of the PC host the connection. If this works you know your Remote Desktop is set up properly and can accept connections. If you cannot connect locally, then there is no need to start trouble shooting the routers and port forwarding as you first need to figure out what is happening on the PC hosting the Remote Desktop.

If you can connect locally but cannot connect from a remote location, make sure your trying to connect to the correct Public IP address. If your sure you are, remove the V-Portal from the picture and place your Linksys router directly to the modem and put the V-Portal behind your Linksys router. Then try again. If you can connect at this point from a remote location, then the V-Portal would be the culprit.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

I'm sorry but I'm not a network savvy person. You mentioned about WAN port in my linksys router. I'm not sure where to setup the WAN. Is this same as Static DNS?
I attached a screenshot of my V-portal (that shows port forwarding) and linksys page for more info.

I really appreciate your help.

Posts: 656 · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:00 pm Post subject:

Look at your Port Forwarding rule in the V-Portal. The IP is 192.168.15.0

A .0 4th Octet is a Network address not the IP address of an individual host. Your not sending the 3389 traffic anywhere.

Click on the Status link in your Linksys router. Looks for Internet or WAN Connection. You will see an IP address of 192.168.15.x. Where the x is would be real 4th Octet that would replace the 0 in your port forwarding rule in the V-Portal. This is the IP address that the V-Portal needs to forward to.

To make it simple to understand, what you doing is passing traffic from one side of a router to another. So when you have 1 router, this is simple. You would port forward directly to the IP of the computer like you did in your Linksys. However when you have 2 or more routers, you have to relay traffic from one router to another to get it back to the hosting computer.

So in your case, the Internet passes the traffic to the Public IP on the WAN port of the V-Portal. You then have to translate this traffic back to the WAN port of the Linksys on port 3389 which can then translate the traffic back to your computer hosting the Remote Desktop session on port 3389.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

EXCELLENT. That did the trick and it is working perfect.
Thank again.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

One more question. I setup the RDC on my PC with inrnal IP of 192.168.1.XYZ and it is woring fine. In my router control panel I'm forwaridng port 3389 to 192.168.1.XYZ.

Now, I have another computer on the same network with the IP address of 192.168.1.abc. How can I setup so that I have the ability to connect to this computer too (without loosing the connection to the first one). The thing that I don't undrestand is that do I need to setup another forward and if so, how will it know which computer to forward to if I'm entering same IP address in my remote location?

Thanks in advance.

Posts: 656 · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:47 pm Post subject:

By design, port forwarding only allows you to forward a port number or port range to a single IP address. If you want to host the same service on more then one host, you need to change the listening port of the service.

So if you want to be able to host 2 Remote Desktop sessions and be able to access them both from the Internet, you are going to have to change the listen port (3389) to a different port like 3388 on the 2nd PC.

This is done through the Registry. While some of these things are not for beginners, it really is not that hard.

Assuming your using Windows XP, follow this article to change the RDP port on your 2nd PC.

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

If your using Windows Vista or Windows 7, just Google, "change Remote Desktop port" to find your operating systems Registry entry point.

Once you change the port on the 2nd PC, you set it up the same way you did the first one with the only difference being the port number you forward to and the PC IP address in the Linksys router. Nothing changes for the original settings you did for the 1st PC.

Then in your client that you using to access the remote session, you would have to specify the port after the IP address like this.

Example: 75.202.80.55:3388

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

Thanks for the tip.
Today I'm experiencing a new problem. My remote desktop connection was working just fine. This morning after I woke up my Internet was not working (no phone tone and no Internet connection on my PC). I had to unplug my modem, Vonage box and router and then plug everything in (in appropriate order) to reset everything.

Since then, my remote desktop is not connecting. I double checked my IP address and computer local IP (remained the same).
My Internet is working with no problem, I checked all the settings my router and Vonage box, I checked the settings in Remote Desktop Connection in Control panel. I also tried to disable the firewall completely just to make sure it is not the firewall. But I had no luck. I'm getting the following message when I try to connect:

This computer cannot connect to the remote computer. Try connecting again. If the problem continues, contact the owner of the remote computer or your network administrator.

Posts: 656 · Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:01 pm Post subject:

The V-Portal has an issue where if the Public IP address you get from your ISP happens to change, the port forwarding no longer works. In order to correct, you must disable the port forwarding in the V-Portal save the change, they enable it again with the same settings it had.

One method that will actually prevent this from occurring and is even more secure then what your doing now since your exposing port 3389 to the internet is to use Hamachi. It is a free VPN client. Run it on the client and the hosting PC. You can remove all port forwarding rules. You would then just connect to the Hamachi IP address on the host from the Remote client. The RDP session runs through the Hamachi VPN tunnel without the need to open ports. There will be you tube videos and forums to help you set this up. It is very very simple.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 07, 2009 Posts: 8

Thanks again, but that wasn't the problem.
I found the issue.
Apperantly my router V-Portal static IP apperantly changed with this reset, which I have no idea why. I corrected that and it fixed the problem. Thanks gain.