Let us look at how to set up the Cloudflare RDP remote desktop. At Bobcares our Server Management Support services can give you a complete guide on setting up the remote RDP.

Connect to Remote Desktop Through Cloudflare Tunnel: RDP

The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) allows users to connect to a computer remotely via a graphical interface. RDP allows users to gain simple remote access to devices or workstations that they cannot physically reach. However, because a misconfiguration might unwittingly provide unwanted access to the computer, RDP connections are frequently the target of assaults.

We can enjoy the comfort of making the RDP server available across the Internet using Cloudflare Zero Trust without the danger of opening any inbound ports on the local server.

Cloudflare Zero Trust provides two ways to secure RDP server access:

• Cloudflare WARP to Tunnel private subnet routing.
• Routing of public hostnames with cloudflared access.

​​ Set up a Cloudflare RDP server in GCP: Remote Desktop

This example shows how to install and configure an RDP server on a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) virtual machine (VM). Note that we can use Any machine that supports RDP connections.

• Create a new project in the Google Cloud Console.
• Navigate to Compute Engine > Virtual Machine Instances.
• Choose Create instance.
• Give the VM instance a name, such as windows-RDP-server.
• Set up the VM instance by following the configuration steps given below. This completes the ist steps set of steps in the remote desktop.

  1:Scroll to Boot Disk and click Change.

  2:Select Windows Server as the operating system.

  3:Select a Desktop Experience version, such as Windows Server 2016 Datacenter.
• To reset the password, open the dropdown next to RDP and choose View gcloud command.
• Choose Run in Cloud Shell.
• In the Cloud Shell terminal, type the command. We have to confirm the password reset.
• Save the auto-generated password and username somewhere secure.

Internet Explorer is installed and set in Enhanced Security mode by default. Disable Enhanced Security and install another browser, such as Google Chrome if the browser is taking too much time.

​​ Connect to RDP server with WARP to Tunnel

This is the next step to remote desktop. We can use the Cloudflare Tunnel to establish a secure, outbound-only connection from the server to Cloudflare’s edge. This necessitates the server running the cloudflared daemon. Users can access the service by downloading the Cloudflare WARP client and joining the Zero Trust organization.

Remote devices will be able to connect in the same way as they would on a private network. Unless we create policies to allow or ban certain users, all devices enrolled in the organization can access the service by default.

​​​​ 1. Link the server to Cloudflare.

• Firstly, we need to set up a Cloudflare Tunnel.
• Select a domain from the drop-down menu and enter any subdomains in the Public Hostnames tab. (for example, rdp.abcd.com).
• After that, select RDP as the Service and input the RDP listening port. It will very certainly be port 80, 443, or 3389.
• Choose Save hostname.
• Finally, to control server access, add a self-hosted application to Cloudflare Access.

​​​​​​ 2. Connect as a user

• Firstly, construct a client machine and install cloudflared.
• To listen on the RDP port, issue the following command:

  cloudflared access rdp --hostname rdp.abcd.com --url rdp://localhost:3389
• This procedure must be set to run continuously and automatically. Users will be unable to connect if the process is terminated.
• Connect from an RDP client, such as Microsoft Remote Desktop, when cloudflared access is active:

  1:Select Add a PC in Microsoft Remote Desktop.

  2: Enter thelocalhost:3389as the PC name.

  3: Enter the RDP server username and password in the User account field.

  4: Select the newly added PC by double-clicking it.

  5: When prompted to continue, choose Continue.

When the client launches, a browser window will open and prompt the user to authenticate themselves.

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Conclusion

To sum up we have now learned how to set up the Cloudflare RDP remote desktop. with the support of our server management support services, we have gone through all of the setup steps in the process. We have also seen how to set up a Cloudflare RDP server in GCP.  We have also seen how to Connect to the RDP server using WARP to tunnel.