Port Forwarding

Port forwarding lets you expose one or more ports of a cloud desktop to the local network or the internet. It's often used with the Remote Desktop Protocol.

This feature works with DaDesktop Course machines (private server required), DaDesktop For Work, and Standalone machines. Please be aware, the interface may look a bit different depending on the type of machine.

Select Port Forwarding

Select 'Advanced' then 'Port Forwarding'.

Port forwarding can be set up via automatic or manual allocation. Automatic allocation grabs the next available port on the server. Auto allocation is generally the go-to to keep things straightforward, but manual allocation lets you pick each external port if needed, from port 10000 to 65500. Any previously set manual port forwards are retained and can be tweaked as you need.

Auto Allocation

This image shows auto allocation, along with a previously set manual port forward using port 11122 on the host and port 22 on the VM.

Port Forwarding Auto-Allocation

Manual Allocation

This example uses port 11122 for both TCP and UDP port forwarding to the cloud desktop VM's port 22 for SSH. You can choose separate UDP and TCP ports if needed.

Manual Port forwarding

Example for Windows RDP

This example uses the original manual allocation method, but you can of course use auto allocation as well.

1. Locate your DaDesktop desktop, click Port forwarding, then set your TCP ports (for remote connection). This is your external port number followed by 3389 (for example, 66666:3389). Make sure you remember this port number; if you forget, you can just go back to Port forwarding and check again.

RDP Port Forward Windows Example

2. Submit and create a password within your Windows DD machine, then click 'Enable Remote Desktop'.

Submit and set up a password inside your Windows DD machine

3. Back on your local Windows device, open Remote Desktop and enter the server name plus TCP port (for example, zh4cn.npg.io:xxxxx if using zh4cn). In 'Show options,' you can also pick the resolution for your remote desktop window.

remote desktop window

3.1 To log into your remote desktop on DaDesktop, by default

"You should reset your username and password in the machine first."

Then connect to the remote desktop.

4. Now you've got a remote desktop that uses the DD template and your own device's sound card; you can also easily copy and paste or output documents. (The small window on the left is the DD remote desktop with audio.)

window DD remote desktop with audio