Can not Remote into VMs using machine names

[farukh@kalvinsoft.com]

I have created Windows VPN on a Win2k8 server, Outside our local network, i am able to connect to the VPN. Issue i am having is, once i connect to VPN i want to be able to remote into other Virtual Machines on the corp. network using machine names i.e abc:port, it shows an error saying remote desktop connection failed.

I am able to remote into virtual machines using public IP, as well as machine local IP (all virtual machines are configured using static IPs), also i am able to ping all the Virtual machines on the network. So it seems like system is not able to process requests based on machine names. which works fine when accessed locally.

Can anyone tell me what do i need to do regarding this?

[+BudMan MVC]

Well how are you going to resolve a host name? abc, do you have a wins server? if not then since its not a fqdn (dns like abc.domain.tld) you would have to broadcast for it. You can not broadcast across segments.

So no hostname across a vpn rarely work unless your bridging?

So a few options, use DNS - if your talking w2k8 server - do you have a Domain(AD) then you would have to have DNS - use that to resolve your computers name. If you setup a search suffix for your domain.tld then sure you can use just hostname portion and the dns query will auto add the domain.tld part.

Setup Wins if you want and don't have AD with DNS. Or just setup a host file on your computer that has a listing off all your machines IP and names and then you can use the names to connect like

192.168.1.100 abc

192.168.1.101 dfg

192.168.1.203 xyz

etc.

so for example I run dns on my local network at home, local.lan - and I have my computes in dns - so when I vpn in I hand off this dns

ethernet adapter ovpn:

	   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : local.lan
	   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TAP-Win32 Adapter V9
	   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-79-1A-85-63
	   Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
	   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
	   IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.200.6
	   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.252
	   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
	   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.200.5
	   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.253
	   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, November 06, 2012 3:11:53 PM
	   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, November 06, 2013 3:11:53 PM

So I can resolve hosts in my network via their fqdn, and my search suffix of local.lan

D:\>ping i5-w7

Pinging i5-w7.local.lan [192.168.1.100] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=127

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=127

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=131ms TTL=127

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=119ms TTL=127

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.100:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 119ms, Maximum = 131ms, Average = 123ms

[farukh@kalvinsoft.com]

I have not tried using AD yet, but could you please explain what and how do i need to add details in host files. I tied adding VMname "tab" IP, but it did not seem to make any change.

[Yogurtmaster]

The HOSTS file is here: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

The file is a text file, just edit the text file and you should see something like this....

127.0.0.1 localhost

So, just add in the IP address and the name that you want to access it.

If I use localhost in my browser it goes directly to 127.0.0.1, this is how it works.

For example...

127.0.0.1 localhost

192.168.1.100 abcport

[+BudMan MVC]

I would not suggest you setup AD just so you can use dns - you could always just fire up dns on your w2k8 box you don't have to setup AD for just simple dns.

Easier is just host file - above is the location. You will prob have problem editing it, you need to elevate your text editor to admin to be able to edit the file.

But if you were running AD, more than likely your machines would already be registering themselves in your DNS - so there would be nothing to do but use that dns server and domain suffix in your query from your remote box that vpn'd in.

[farukh@kalvinsoft.com]

Editing Host files would not be a good solution since everytime i create a new VM, i will have to make changes accordingly to every computer.

Enabling DNS in AD has taken take care of it.

Thanks

[+BudMan MVC]

"Enabling DNS in AD has taken take care of it."

This statement confuses me - you can not have AD without DNS. So there is no enabling it in AD, if you setup AD dns it is part of the setup and would be enabled from the git go.

Do you mean you enabled the DNS role and don't have AD running?