Access Windows with RDC from a remote machine

Hi,

My goal is to use Remote Desktop Connection on a Mac laptop to control a Windows XP Parallels VM running on a Mac desktop with a wired Internet connection.

I have a Windows XP Parallels VM using Parallels RC1 that can access the network with Shared Networking through my iMac on a wired connection (en0). However, I haven't been able to figure out how to enable port forwarding for RDC so that connecting to my iMac's IP address allows me to access WinXP through RDC.

I tried enabling Bridged Networking on the default adapter, but the effect is that both WinXP and OSX get private IP addresses, such that neither OS can connect to the Internet instead of both getting assigned IP addresses from my service provider.

Thanks for your help!
Corey

 

I don't recall doing anything special to get my virtual Windows machine accessible. I think it goes like this.

1. Boot your virtual machine.
2. Access your Parallels network adapter properties via Control Panel or elsewhere.
3. Select and view your TCP/IP properties.
4. Set your IP address to a static value, setting the network mask appropriately.
5. Set your DNS or gateway setting to the IP address of your NAT device or Router (no need to tie it to your Mac at all).
6. Go into you NAT device or Router, and set a route for port 3389 to go to the IP address you set for the virtual machine.

That should be all you need to do. It is working great for me.

 

Hi clinder,

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to apply your technique to my system. I would like my WinXP VM to obtain an IP address automatically using DHCP. Once it has the IP address, it will not be behind a NAT/router, so I should not need to configure anything else.

In the meantime, I can only get Shared Networking to work, so Parallels is acting like a NAT for my VM, which I thought I could disable by enabling bridged ethernet, but I couldn't get that to work either.

Do you have any other ideas, or could you clarify how I can apply your first suggestion?

Thanks again,
Corey

 

Well, if you use DHCP, you wouldn't know what IP address would be assigned. If you don't know which IP address is assigned, I'm not sure how you could connect via Remote Desktop unless you are connecting via another machine on your local network, in which case I would think you could connect via the name you gave the machine, assuming you are on the same workgroup.

Also, what are you using to assign an IP address via DHCP if you don't have a router/NAT device?

I had expected that someone else would respond to you as well...

 

Hi clinder,

Thanks again for your response. I was able to get it working with bridged networking. My computer is on a network that evidently has certain security measures in place to prevent bridged networking from working on certain Ethernet drops. I used a different type of drop in my network and now it works!

To answer your question, our network uses DHCP to assign an IP address that rarely changes, so I can reliably use that IP address to connect to my VM from the external Internet. It wasn't that I couldn't connect because I didn't know the IP address; it was because the VM was not being assigned an IP address from the particular net drop I was using.

Thanks again for your help!

 

Can someone take this from the top?

This thread is of great interest to me as I have to RDC into my company's network from home. But I just haven't been able to get it to work.

For anyone who has this working, can you walk me through how you did it? I need to figure out what's wrong with either my in OS X Network Preferences, OS X Sharing Preferences (is that even involved here?), Parallels Preferences, Parallels Network Adapter settings, XP Network settings, and our router's settings.

Everything I've tried so far has disabled MY VMs ability to get to the internet.

Rather than having to tell me every setting, perhaps you could just correct any that I have wrong. (I have complete control of the router.) Here's how these things are set up at the moment.

My machine is a Mac Pro. All members of the network have static IPs, mine is 192.168.1.201 and the router is at 192.168.1.1. I'm connected to the network via Built-in Ethernet 1, Built-in Ethernet 2 is not used (but could be if that somehow makes sense) and we choose not to use wireless networking. In Sharing Preferences I have Remote Login checked (having nothing to do with Parallels) and everything else, including Internet Sharing, is off.

Parallels Preferences are unchanged from their defaults (as it relates to the Network tab). For my VM's Network Adapter 1 I have it Enabled (of course) and set to Connect Cable At Startup. Emulation is set to Bridged Ethernet using the Default Adapter.

In XP I manually set it to use IP 192.168.1.202. In my router's admin screen I can see that IP as being one of the connected devices (the router is from Actiontec and came with Verizon's FIOS service) and I have port 3389 set to forward to that IP. I can use RDC successfully to get into an actual PC here in the office. If I change port forwarding to go to that PC I can get in without any trouble. In other words, it doesn't seem to me that the router is contributing to my trouble.

So, does anyone have a few minutes to review this and respond. I'm probably missing something simple, but I just can't see it.

Thanks in advance...

 

Your problem sounds like it's beyond my expertise, especially since you have control of the router and appear to have taken the correct steps to enable port forwarding for RDC and assigning a static IP to your VM, which is using a bridged connection.

The only question I have about your setup is whether the VM can access any network traffic once you have given it the .202 static IP. Can you visit external web sites from the VM? Can you ping the VM from another computer inside the NAT? Or is your issue only that you can't access the computer from outside the NAT even with port forwarding enabled?

If you can access it from within the NAT, is setting up a VPN an option for you? That might improve security anyway than using RDC directly from a computer outside your network.

Other than that, does your router have other security measures in place that blocks traffic if it sees two IP addresses originating from the same NIC? Checking and/or disabling that is beyond my experience, but it might be something else to look into, especially since you say that RDC works for you as long as it is an independent PC and not a VM.

Good luck!

 

I don't have a solution for you, but I'll point out that you are apparently trying to solve two different problems at once. The first is RDC outbound, and the second is RDC inbound. If you have a couple of real PCs available, getting it running on them, then substituting the Mac for one of them at a time may make it easier to troubleshoot.

 

Thanks both of your for taking time to respond. Cmderive, the XP machine in parallels behaves perfectly - internet is fine and it has full access to our server. I can ping it from behind the router, I haven't tried it from home. I must confess I don't know the significance of pinging, I assume that's just to determine of a machine is visible from a given location. I'll look into the two IPs/one NIC idea.

Joem, if I'm following you I think I've already addressed this. In other words, for months I could use RDC to get into a PC in our office - I could do it from home (outside the router) or from here (behind the router). The only variable that has been introduced is that I've changed from a physical PC to one running in Parallels. Is that what you're referring to?

Thanks again to both of you.