7 replies to this topic

[mirekmal]

After several days of googling I admitt I'm stuck and do not know how to proceed... I cannot connect to any of my home computers, including server dasboard, from WHS 2011 home web page. It does not work regardless I connect from public internet, from local network or from another home network connected via LAN-to-LAN VPN (so direct connection, but another subnet). I can properly open WHS web page and browse folders and media files. But whenever I click on connect to any PC button, RDP window opens and hangs indefinitely trying to connect. I have all necessary ports properly opened on my router, I think (80, 443, 4125 and 3389 - manualy configured). I can easily RDP to any of these boxes directly from Remote Desktop application, but not when it is initiated from hWHS home page. I think that for connections initiated from WHS home page server is using kind of RDP proxy? Any way to check if this one is working? What is confusing me is that when I start connection to server (Dashboard) in RemoteApp connection window that paps, in the title bar, I can see local IP address of server, not domain name, so it seems indeed to be kind of local connection (so need to go through proxy) rather than truly remote (like RDP connections I make directly). Any idea what to look for?

[ikon]

I can't connect either, but in my case it's a xxx.homeserver.com certificate issue. I assume you're getting past that point?

[mirekmal]

Yeap, that was the first issue for me to understand. Assuming you went through Remote Web Access properly and set up ne domain name without errors, there are few thing to look at:
- if you connect from home LAN to server via its server name (e.g. https://home-server/remote) or its IP address (e.g. https://192.168.1.2/remote), you will get certificate error because server server name (home-server in the first case and IP address in second) do not match your external domain name for which certificate was issued (e.g. yourdomain.homeserver.com).
- I used to connect from work, via LAN to LAN VPN tunnel. In this cas I was using IP address, that was causing the same problem as above
- Connecting from public internet works fine for me as name on certificate matches public domain name.
This rules applies to connecting to WHS home web page and should apply to remote desktop as well. Difference is that while you connecting to web page you can consciously certificate ignore error (if any) and get to page, it seems not to obeyed for RDP.
In my case I do not get any certificate warnings/errors. Connection just hangs idefinitely on isitializing connection dialog....

[jmwills]

So I am confused. You can or cannot from which side, internal or external? If internal, this may be the inability of your router to resolve the routing/DNS properly.

What router are you using as there are some out there with this issue and this has been brought up a couple of times in the forums.

You could edit the local Host file but until you get by the other issues...leave this one alone.

[ikon]

Yeap, that was the first issue for me to understand. Assuming you went through Remote Web Access properly and set up ne domain name without errors, there are few thing to look at:
- if you connect from home LAN to server via its server name (e.g. https://home-server/remote) or its IP address (e.g. https://192.168.1.2/remote), you will get certificate error because server server name (home-server in the first case and IP address in second) do not match your external domain name for which certificate was issued (e.g. yourdomain.homeserver.com).
- I used to connect from work, via LAN to LAN VPN tunnel. In this cas I was using IP address, that was causing the same problem as above
- Connecting from public internet works fine for me as name on certificate matches public domain name.
This rules applies to connecting to WHS home web page and should apply to remote desktop as well. Difference is that while you connecting to web page you can consciously certificate ignore error (if any) and get to page, it seems not to obeyed for RDP.
In my case I do not get any certificate warnings/errors. Connection just hangs idefinitely on isitializing connection dialog....

In my case I can RDP no problem, using the domain name. I use the https://domain.name:port# format and my router is set to forward different incoming port numbers to different computers on my home LAN.

I'm pretty sure my certificate issues are simply that I haven't installed correct certificates on the various machines, mostly cause I'm too lazy, but also partly because I still find the certificate process a bit bewildering. I believe there is still a ways to go before certificate handling is something any Joe Blow can do easily.

[mirekmal]

In my case I can connect to WHS home web page, I can directly (I mean using Wnidows Remote Desktop Application) RDP to WHS or any machine inside my network. All this regardless I'm connecting from inside or outside my LAN. What I can't do is to connect to server Dashboard or any other machine from WHS Home Page. I see the computers are on-line and available, but when I press Connect button connection dialog pops up and hangs indefinitely. Again in this case it does not matter if I try from inside or outside my home network.

[diehard]

Have you set the user permissions to include access ?

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[mirekmal]

Yes, I did. Without it I would even not see connect to server button...