AWS RDP getting disconnected after joining VPN [closed]

Question

I have an Amazon EC2 Instance running Windows Server 2012. I connect to the instance using RDP.

From RDP, I'm unable to connect to the VPN.

I actually think I'm getting connected to VPN, and immediately, I lose the RDP connection.

I cannot reconnect to the Instance through RDP unless I reboot the instance. But, if I reboot the instance, I lose the VPN connection.

This is happening everytime.

Any thoughts on if at all it is possible to connect to VPN from RDP on AWS.

Answer 1

Your problem is that the AWS server's public IP address is no longer reachable when you start the VPN. What you need is a VPN split-tunneling exception for your source IP address (i.e. the IP address where you initiate the RDP session... not the AWS IP... presumably this RDP session is initiated from India); however, split-tunneling is normally only configurable by the VPN administrator.

If your administrator allows split-tunneling, then you might be able to persuade them to help you make this work.

Another alternative is to ditch AWS altogether and go with a hosting service that offers KVM over IP access to the hosted machine; this would allow you to start a VPN within the windows machine and use the KVM IP address for management while you're connected via VPN. Sadly AWS does not seem to offer KVM services.