Remote desktop from internet to windows 7 box via linksys router

I have a linksys wrt54g router and a windows 7 box at home I'd like to be able to remote desktop into from work. Would it be possible for someone to point me in the right direction on what I need to configure to get this working, both on the router and on the win 7 box? I'm sure there are a lot of little steps involved. Ideally I'd like to set it up so that only my work IP address can get through to the win 7 machine.

Thanks very much for any pointers and links!

larryq

Posted 2010-06-10T03:31:20.640

Reputation: 315

Answers

For this to work you will need to have Windows 7 Professional or above. In your router you will want to go to application and gaming (or something to that effect). There you will setup port forwarding for port 3389 on your router to port 3389 of the IP address of your pc. In Windows 7, go to the Control Panel and double click on System. Click on remote settings in the side bar of the system Control Panel. Under remote desktop click "Allow connections from computers running any version of remote desktop (less secure)" to enable remote desktop. Below this click the select users button and select the user you would like to grant remote access.

An alternative to opening up the port would be to use a vpn service like Hamachi. This would require that you have the Hamachi client on all the computers that you would like to use to access the machine but it is a more secure option.

user4892

Posted 2010-06-10T03:31:20.640

Reputation: 196

2It's also worth noting that each user with Remote Desktop permission needs to have a password set on his/her account. Since your computer is now open to the Internet, make sure all the admin accounts and other accounts with Remote Desktop privileges have strong passwords or passphrases. – rob – 2010-06-10T07:33:49.910

Thanks to everyone for your comments. This is great stuff. One question if I may-- is it possible to limit which machines can get through the Linksys via the open port? Sort of akin to limiting wifi network access via a MAC address filter?

In other words, are there ways to tell the linksys I'm computer X, and therefore ok to use rdp? – larryq – 2010-06-10T15:43:01.233

You could possibly do this with an alternative firmware like http://www.dd-wrt.org. Another option would be to use the windows firewall or a third party firewall to filter/block based on remote ip address.

– user4892 – 2010-06-12T06:44:04.280

In addition you can change the listening port you have open for rdp, see: microsoft article Then port forward to that machine on your router

datatoo

Posted 2010-06-10T03:31:20.640

Reputation: 3 162

If you don't have a static IP address you'll also need to find out your IP address somehow.

I leave Gmail running on my home machine and then I can see what my home machine's IP address from my work machine's browser when logged into Gmail by clicking on the Details link at the bottom of Gmail.

Matthew Lock

Posted 2010-06-10T03:31:20.640

Reputation: 4 254

Another way to do this is with a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) service like http://DynDNS.com.

– rob – 2010-06-10T07:35:42.590

I would suggest TeamViewer. It is free and you don't need to know IPs. All you need is the ID and password from your home computer. No configuration needed. No install needed, you can just run it. Especially useful if your work computer requires admin access to install software.

Sarge

Posted 2010-06-10T03:31:20.640

Reputation: 717