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I'm trying to connect to a Windows server from my Mac using RDC2.1 for Mac.

The problem is the server I need to connect to is guarded by the evil dragon - IP-based access control on a completely separate network.

I have an IP I can get in on, but it's at my office (i.e. a completely separate network).

Because that network isn't set up for VPN, I've set up a SOCKS proxy through an SSH tunnel (which is all working fine).

               (SSH proxy)
Me (on my Mac) ----------> Office Linux box ----> Windows server
(home network)             (office network)       (other network)

From my Linux server in my office (the SSH server) I can telnet to port 3389 on the Windows server, no problem. But from my Mac I can't get so much as a squeak out of it. Any ideas?

simonhamp
  • 475

2 Answers2

24

You don't need a SOCKS proxy for this; simple SSH port forwarding will work. For example, there's a server at my office I frequently need to access, which we'll call server.example.com. I can't connect to it directly, but I can ssh to myofficemachine.example.com. So I do this:

ssh -L 3389:server.example.com:3389 myofficemachine.example.com

And then I point my local Remote Desktop client to localhost. This works great, and my setup is almost identical to yours -- a Mac at home, a Linux box at my office, and a Windows server on another work network.

larsks
  • 47,453
1

You could try using CoRD, a replacement remote desktop app which supports SOCKS proxies.

Marc
  • 119