[Post publish note - 8/19/08: Frank Laub has provided a tip, in the comments below, for alternatively configuring your router for port forwarding rather than setting up a new listener port for each computer. This is exactly why I like to blog...for others to tell me an easier way to do things!]
I often have a need to remote onto one of the multiple computers on my home network from offsite but am too cheap to get more than one IP address. Instead of getting more IP addresses (and without installing a third party tool), you can easily accommodate this by modifying the listening port, from the default of 3389, of each computer on your network. You'll then be able to remote desktop into each of your computers via <your IP address>:<custom listening port number>.
To make this possible, take the following steps (performed on Windows Server 2003 with Windows Firewall enabled):
- Enable the computer to accept Remote Desktop connections
- Right click the My Computer icon and bring up System Properties and go to the Remote tab
- Check the Enable Remote Desktop option
- Select users which will have Remote Desktop access to the computer
- Change the listening port of the computer you'd like to remote desktop onto (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/306759):
- Start Registry Editor
- Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber
- On the Edit menu, click Modify, and then click Decimal
- Type the new port number, and then click OK
- Restart the computer
- Expose the new port through the Windows Firewall
- Open Network Connections
- Open the properties of the Local Area Connection and go to the Advanced tab
- Click the Windows Firewall Settings button and go to the Exceptions tab
- Click Add Port... and provide the following:
- Name = "Remote Desktop (<custom listening port>)" (What you name this is arbitrary, but this helps to identify it.)
- Port Number = <custom listening port>
- TCP should remain checked
- Change Scope should be set to Any Computer (if you want to remote desktop over the internet), My Network (if you only want to be able to remote desktop from internally - but then there's no point in changing the listening port), or Custom List
- If you are using a hardware firewall as well, you'll also want to poke a hole in it for the custom listening port and have it redirect traffic on that port to the respective computer.
And that should do it!
Billy McCafferty