Secure connection with SSH and RDP

To make RDP safer for a connection over the internet, it is recommended to use an SSH tunnel.

SSH Tunneling with PuTTY

You can do this with PuTTY.

In PuTTY, create a tunnel setting:

• Source Port: 1234 (or another free port)
• Destination: localhost:3389

You can use any random port (like 1234) as a local port. This does not need to be open in your firewall, because the traffic goes through the already open SSH port (default 22).

How does it work?

You connect to a local port on your own computer. The SSH client sends this traffic encrypted through the tunnel to the SSH server, which then delivers it 'locally' to the RDP service (port 3389).

In your RDP client (Remote Desktop Connection) you then connect to: