Connecting to a Hosted Instance

Testing Remote Desktop Connectivity

K2 provides a dedicated hosted instance that is used exclusively to test Remote Desktop connectivity. To test whether a computer will be able to connect to a K2-provided hosted instance on the internet, please download the K2RDPTest.rdp connection file in the download link on the right-hand side of this page.  (If file downloads are prohibited in your environment, please follow the instructions under the Manual Connection heading)

When downloading the file, you will be prompted to save the file or open the file. You may select either option: “Open With” will automatically open the connection, or alternatively you may save the file to a location on your computer, and then double-click the saved .rdp file to open the Remote Desktop Connection.

 
After opening the RDP file, you may see a login dialog box. If the security dialog box is shown,  you may log on to the test environment using the following credentials:

 
Once the .rdp file is opened, you will be prompted to connect to the hosted instance. Click Connect or OK to connect the remote server.

Note:  you may be presented with a security warning dialog box similar to the one below. You may click Connect to accept the security warning (The hosted environment is perfectly safe to use)

Your computer will attempt to connect to the remote server

If the connection is successful, you will be presented with a login screen. (If you receive an error message, please try to download or open the connection file again before referring to the Troubleshooting section below)

You may log on to the test environment using the following credentials:

If the connection was successful, you should see a confirmation message on the remote desktop, similar to the screenshot below:

If you can see this screen, the connection test was successful and you will be able to use your dedicated K2-provided virtual envrionment after it has been provisioned for you. You may log off from the remote desktop environment by clicking Start and selecting Log Off.

Manual Connection
If file downloads are disabled in your environment, you may follow this procedure to connect to the RDP test environment.

On your computer, open the Windows Start Menu, click on All Programs, then Accessories and then select Remote Desktop Connection, or alternatively click in the Run textbox and type mstsc to launch Remote Desktop. Once remote desktop has opened, use the following credentials to connect to the Test Environment:

Follow the same sequence as steps above to continue testing Remote Desktop connectivity.

Troubleshooting

If you receive error message while connecting, try to repeat the connection download/manual connection steps again. Sometimes, the remote server may be busy serving other connections.

The next step is to verify whether your computer can reach the hosted virtual server environment. To test this, open a command prompt, and type the following command to ping the remote server:
PING ec2-23-23-253-48.compute-1.amazonaws.com

If the ping command returns replies, your computer can reach the remote server, so continue on to the next steps. If you cannot get a response (“request timed out”, or “could not find host” type errors), ask your network administrator if there are any restrictions that will prevent your computer from pinging a server on the internet. These restrictions may need to be removed to enable your computer to connect to the K2 RDP test environment.

If your computer can reach the test server with the PING command but you still get error messages, try to use a different computer to connect to the hosted virtual environment to verify whether it is just your computer that cannot connect.

If you still cannot reach the hosted test instance, you may need to ask your network administrator for help. It is possible that a network connection is blocking access to the machines used by K2 to test Remote Desktop connectivity, in which case you may see the same issues when trying  to connect to your actual hosted instance.

If your network administrator says that you computer should be able to connect to a Remote Desktop connection but you still are not able to, please refer to the following Microsoft TechNet articles which describes some more troubleshooting steps you can follow to resolve errors.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/187628
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780927%28WS.10%29.aspx

As a last resort, you may be able to request a DVD with the virtual server image from K2 and install this virtual server image manually in your environment. Please contact your local K2 office to make the necessary arrangements for a DVD to be shipped to you.

A note on RDP connections and firewalls
The K2 hosted instances do not require that port 3389 (RDP) is open on any firewalls. If communication over port 3389 is blocked by a firewall, the K2-provided remote desktop connection file will automatically revert to a Remote Desktop Gateway server called awsrdg01.k2.com which will perform the necessary communication over port 80, just like normal HTTP traffic so that you can still connect to the virtual environment over the internet. Note that, while it is not required to open port 3389, opening the port can provide improved performance and a better user experience. Please discuss this option with your network administrator.