RDP to subnet over the internet...

[ashearera]

Hi guys,

I have two routers:

ISP router (TP link w8968)
LabRouter (Linksys E1200)

The Lan port of the ISP router is connected to the WAN port of LabRouter. ISP Router hands out DHCP addresses in 192.168.1.xxx and has a reservation to assign LabRouter a WAN IP of 192.168.1.2.

LabRouter's LAN IP is on the Subnet 192.168.2.xxx, and my lab equipment underneath this is also on this subnet.

On LabRouter I have port forwarded port 3389 to the IP of one of my lab machines I'd like to control remotely. With this setup I'm able to RDP from my mac, connected to only the ISP router, to the machine by using the WAN IP address of LabRouter (192.168.1.2) and this works fine.

However, I'd like to take this a step further and be able to RDP onto the machine over the internet. I forwarded port 3389 on the ISP router to LabRouter's WAN IP and then try to RDP onto my ISP router's public IP, but having no success. RDP reports back:

"We couldn't connect to the remote PC. Make sure the PC is turned on...." etc. etc.

Anyone have any suggestions I can try?

 

[htismaqe]

Are you preserving the port when it's translated on the external router? Make sure it's actually requesting a connection on port 3389. It might be beneficial to temporarily insert a hub so that you can use a packet sniffer to catch the traffic coming from the external router towards the lab router.

 

[chadster766]

Check the IP Address on the ISP router WAN to make sure it Public. Do this in the ISP router UI.

 

[ashearera]

So weird one guys.

The W8968 has a DDNS section in the settings. TP-link must have a deal with no-ip.com or something as the router admin page actually links straight to their register page.

I signed up for a free no-ip account and setup a domain, and then enabled DDNS with that. Now when I RDP to the DDNS address from external to my network everything's working.

Weird, maybe TP-link have prevented this working somehow with the WAN IP to drive traffic to no-ip.com or something haha? Either way seems to be working now...

Thanks