Remote dekstop help!

[MR.CJ-7]

Any techies out there that can help me out?

I am trying to set up my home PC (XP pro) for remote desktop. I have enabled Remote access and I think I have the port forwarded properly on my router, but still I get "unable to connect". My "computer guy" says it is easy, but insists on coming out to do it. Can anyone walk me through it?

I am running Zone alarm for firewall, but have tried turning off firewall and still no difference. I am behind a Qwest modem and a linksys WRT54g router.

I have tried connecting to my pc from my office computer which our tech support has enabled for RDC and can currently connect to other computers from that one just fine, I can't seem to connect to my pc at home.

 

[Herzog]

Are you forwarding port 3389 in the router to proper IP that you want remote access to?

 

[MR.CJ-7]

I believe so.

On the router port forwarding page it says "port from 3389" and "port to 3389" "Protocol both" and it is forwarded to the correct static IP. Also on the "port range forwarding page" I have "start=3389" "end=3389" to the correct IP again "protocol=both".

When I try to connect I get "this computer cannot connect to the remote computer..."

 

[mbryson]

you might need to check out the "netstat" command (I think that's it). There's an option to show ports that are open on the host computer. You'll then have to follow all the devices in the chain to ensure that port is open throughout the chain/path.

http://www.petri.co.il/quickly_find_local_open_ports.htm

 

[Caleb]

what address are you trying to connect to? You should be doing XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:3389 now if you forward port 80 to 3389 then you can just do XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

Because you are forward 3389 to 3389 you have to specify the port to connect to (hence the :3389 after your static IP). Have you tried connecting on your local network to your PC (to it's private IP)? This will tell you if your pc at home is listening correctly. Sometimes windows (for no reason) will stop listening on port 3389 even though RDC is enabled. To fix it you just need to restart your computer. To verify it's listening you can open a command prompt and type 'netstat -an' (without the single quotes) and you should see in the ports it's listening to 3389. Also to test that it is indeed listening to 3389, from another computer on your network you can open a command prompt and type 'telnet XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 3389' replacing XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX with you private IP. If it shows it being refused then it's not listening but if it connects then you are good to go.

Your port forwarding sounds correct, from what I remember of the Qwest equipment. Try these few things and see what you get.

 

[piecesnparts]

There are several things you can look at to see where the problem is happening.
1. on your local computer is it open. (service running?, firewall)
2. on your router is it open
3. blocking from the client side (usually not a problem)

Your computer guy shouldn't have to come out unless he has tested these things
the way I would do it is nmap exterior ip address (nmap -p 3389 -P0 XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) where XXX... is your ip
to find out your ip go to www.whatismyip.org if it is closed or filtered you have a problem.

if you want to pm me the address I can do it. because of how easy it is to turn remote desktop on I think its the firewall.

to turn it on click on start, then right click on my computer and click on properties. click on the remote tab on top, and then the second check box should be checked.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

Ok so I tried the netstat thing and I see my static IP address, but I don't see 3389 listening. I do see 0.0.0.0:3389 listening, but my of course that isn't my IP. I see a port 139 listening on my IP, 3403, 3780 as established, 4230 and 4650 as time wait.

3780 corresponds with a network printer's IP address I have on the same router.
3403 corresponds to an IP that is linked to these guys

http://www.savvis.net/corp/index.html

who are they and why are they linked to my pc?

So apparently I don't have the port listening. What should I try next to fix that? I have Remote desktop enabled through the start menu as asked above.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

OK so I tried working with it again last night and I got it!

Turns out the modem login was xxx.xxx.0.1 so I assumed that was the address to forward. It turns out the modem was assigning xxx.xxx.0.3 to my network. Once I forwarded the port to that IP I could login from the office to the home network!

Now I just need to figure out how to setup a static external IP address or domain name. I suppose a web search will point me in the right direction

thanks for the help guys!

 

[Rusted]

for a static external IP address you will have to talk to your ISP who may or may not allow it. And if they do allow it they may charge you a little extra money. I use a service from www.no-ip.com. It is free for the basic one (fine by me) and it works great

 

[Herzog]

I use a service from www.no-ip.com. It is free for the basic one (fine by me) and it works great

I use this too. Works very well.

 

[MR.CJ-7]

Thanks guys. I just signed up on no-ip.com seems like it will do the trick.

Basically all I needed was the ability to RDP into my home computer to access my networked all-in-one printer so I could remotely enable it to auto answer faxes. I set it to not answer since that plays hell with my voice message service, but now when I get a call that a fax is coming in I can auto answer it and print it to word and view it anywhere I have web!

Ahhh my life just got much easier!!!

Many thanks again!