Accessing Windows VM via RDP through myQNAPcloud

[rdowens11vx]

First, sorry for the question. I've been looking for a comprehensive solution and tried various bits I've read for the last three hours with no luck. This, seemingly, has been covered, but I'm not getting it...

I have a VM running Windows 10 perfectly happy. I can RDP from one Windows machine on my home network into the machine using its name. It works just like any other Windows Remote Desktop. Slick, nice, perfect...

I understand that myQNAPCloud takes my dynamic IP through my ISP and resolves through a fixed address to my home network. I understand that my virtual is probably on port 3389. The myQNAPCloud setup on my NAS doesn't have any options through UPnP to port forward 3389. I added a rule and called it RDP. I did this based on some of the suggestions I read here.

With or without the forwarding, I think, the address I would be looking for to connect Remote Desktop through the Internet to that virtual machine would be:

<myName>.myQNAPCoud.com:3389

With or without that port forwarded, it doesn't work / times out.

That makes sense to me because how would the QNAP NAS know to route that to my virtual machine? 3389 is being forwarded from my router to the NAS, but how does the NAS know to forward that to the virtual? What if I have 4 virtual machines? How do I glue the ports to each machine.

I've been through the settings on the Virtualization Station and the QNAPCloud service, and man, I can't see anything to wire this up.

Yes, I am very new to all this, but not new to the concepts and what-not.

The QNAP marketing info all indicates this is an easy thing to do...access from anyway...just use RDP through the cloud service, etc. I bought the TVS-871 specifically to do this (amoung other needs, but went with the power for the virtualization). VMS is cool, but I'd like to go RDP for performance, but I can't make it work.

How / what do I need to do?

Thanks. I really have tried, researched, and experimented. I know there has to be something really basic I am missing....

-Randy

[OneCD]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Have you checked the target VM has its own LAN IP address? It will if your VM is using Ethernet bridging. Windows can tell you what its own IP address is.

If so, your router needs to forward (via your new 'RDP' rule) to that IP and not to the NAS IP. That may sound odd - but there it is.

The myQNAPCloud setup on my NAS doesn't have any options through UPnP to port forward 3389.

Advice: never use UPnP.

With or without that port forwarded, it doesn't work / times out.

You must forward it. Not forwarding is a guaranteed failure, whereas forwarding will only fail due to a faulty config.

The QNAP marketing info all indicates this is an easy thing to do...access from anyway...

Marketing people all come from another planet where everything is exactly how they say it is.

[rdowens11vx]

Thank you, One CD. You are exactly right. I got this to work via port forwarding to the IP that the VM was on...

I say "was" because as soon as the VM (or maybe the NAS) was restarted, the VM came up on another IP address. Now I am struggling trying to figure out how to set a static on the VM inside the NAS. Changing the config of the network adapter properties in Windows is causing Windows to declare a state of emergency when I exit the properties screen. Windows sets about trying to repair the broken network connection (which isn't exactly broken).

So, last question, I think...

What is the correct way to reserve / set a static IP address on one a virtual so the port forwarding always resolves to the right IP address.

Thank you again for the push!

-Randy

[OneCD]

Hey Randy.

What is the correct way to reserve / set a static IP address on one a virtual so the port forwarding always resolves to the right IP address.

I suggest setting up your DHCP server with static leases. This is sometimes called "address reservation". This means your DHCP server (usually your router) will always assign the same IP address to the same device. It does this by recording the MAC address of the client device (in this case, your Windows VM) and associating it with your chosen IP. Then, whenever your Windows VM starts, it receives the same IP address from the server. I use this method for all devices and VMs on my LAN.