Question

I’ve created a Windows VM from the Gallery as a standalone VM

I then created a second VM from the same image and in the Virtual Machive Mode of the creation wizard I select to ‘Connect to Existing Virtual Machine’ and select my first machine.

All is well.

However – I can’t figure out how to RDP to that second machine.

As the two are load balanced they both share the same DNS entry and public IP. I can see two ports assigned for RDP, one for each machine, but I can’t connect to the second one.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

You should be able to connect to any instance without any problems (I just tested and it works). This is how it should go:

1. Create your first VM, Name=vm001, Dns=vm001.cloudapp.net. This VM should contain 1 endpoint by default, port 3389 (both public & private port) for RDP.
2. Create your second VM and choose to connect to an existing virtual machine. Name=vm002, but you won’t be able to choose the Dns. By connecting to an existing VM (vm001 in this case), you’ll reuse the same Dns. In this case it would be vm001.cloudapp.net. Check the endpoints for this new virtual machine. You’ll see an endpoint for RemoteDesktop with private port 3389, but the public port will be something different (like 62295 for example). Note that this enpdoint is not load balanced.

The fact that each VM has its own public port for RDP and that the endpoint is not load balanced should be enough to connect to the instances without any issues. This means:

• vm001.cloudapp.net:3389 > vm001:3389
• vm001.cloudapp.net:62295 > vm002:3398

If you still have issues connecting, go to the portal, select the VM and choose the connect button. Also check if your firewall allows you to connecton this random port (maybe your firewall allows connections to 3389 but not to 62295 for example).