How to connect to AWS windows server without rdp? - amazon-web-services

I have changed some rdp settings to the windows server. I can see the screenshot but I cannot able to connect to the instance. What are the other methods to connect to the instance? I dont have snapshots. How to fix this?

Create an AMI of your server before doing anything below.
You will not be able to connect to the instance using RDP if you have messed up RDP thru any other tool. You might be able to repair your settings by attaching the root EBS volume on another Windows instance and repairing.
This document will show you how to attach the Windows volume to another server. Just skip the stuff about resetting the password.
Resetting the Windows Administrator Password
If the changes to RDP were made in the registry, you can also attach the registry on the other Windows instance. Then undo / repair your changes.
Just make sure that you are using the same Windows versions for everything above.
Load or Unload Registry Hives
Edit another Windows install's registry

Related

Google Cloud Instance showing SSH instead of RDP (Windows instead of Linux)

I have a Windows Instance running in Google Cloud with two disks (ie boot disk and empty drive).
I manually logged into the machine and copied boot data into empty drive. I removed the boot and tried to spin up the VM with the empty drive and it was successful.
However, instead of showing RDP connect button now it is showing SSH. Any idea on why this is happening or how to solve the issue?
Which version of Windows are you installing?
Some new versions of Windows Server like "Core" versions only have access by SSH, the procedure that you have performed seems a little bit strange.
My suggestion is to redeploy your VM and check your attached disk looking for everything that is right on the boot disk.

Windows 2012 R2 RDS Black Blank Screen on login by admin or users in GCP

I am a Windows Sysadmin running a set of Windows 2012 R2 servers on GCP that were deployed via Itopia which is a Google Cloud partner that orchestrates the deployment of Windows 2012 R2 servers on Google cloud for the sole purpose of running IAAS Windows RDS servers on GCP.
Sporadically when users or myself (domain admin) logs into the RDS session host the login appears as normal and seems to pass user login stage but then the desktop experience shows up as a blank black screen with no start menu or explorer as you would normally see logging into a windows desktop experience on RDS.
Has anyone else experienced this issue on Windows RDS or Windows RDS on GCP? I know that GCP does not install display adapters into their servers so it is impossible to get to a graphical UI as an administrator to see what is going on with this server.
I'm not very familiar with the Google Cloud Shell but I understand there might be some commands there to check on services or other parts of the O/S health.
In my case I believe it is a RDS service that is failing and needs to be restarted but is stuck for some reason. With the lack of a console it is difficult to troubleshoot.
Any suggestion on how to best tackle this?
Thanks
You might have install the Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Core instead of the Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter one. the difference between these, there is no desktop in Server Core, by design. you can review the windows document for more details.
Also posting as answer as I don't have rep, sorry.
GCP vms do have a console you can access, will be CLI only but very handy for trouble shooting. From the instances page, click edit, right below the remote access options check "Enable connecting to serial ports" and then save. Then you should have the option to Connect to serial console at the top under Remote access. for windows I believe it's serial port 2. When you connect you'll enter "CMD" enter, then shift+esc, then enter, and you'll be prompted for your creds. no delete/backspace so type it in correctly or start over. Once authenticated you should be at the Windows CLI prompt
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/interacting-with-serial-console

unable to connect via rdp to a google cloud windows server vm

I have one instance of a Windows Server 12 R2 VM on google cloud that's working properly and I have connected to it successfully using RDP. I have tried to replicate it by creating a snapshot out of it and creating an instance from the snapshot. According to the platform the instance was created, but i can't seem to connect to it or to get a password. When I click "Get windows password" I get this:
forever. When i try to connect to it, I get
I have no idea what to do, any help would be appreciated.Thanks
The password creation tool from the console only works for images builted from the official image repo. In this case your source is a previous VM through a snapshot. In that case, and also in migrations all the previous credentials are kept in the new VM. You can download the GCP RDP agent here and access using the credential you used to have in your source VM.
Connecting to a Windows Instance
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/windows/connecting-to-windows-instance
-----------Update----------------
In the case you can not get to enter the VM, it seems to be a firewall rules issue. By default the port tcp:3389(RDP access) is open to all VM at the default network, check your VM is in that network or check if the firewall rule has a tag to be applied.
If not, apply a tag to your new machine and create a firewall rule tobe applied to that tag.
Hope it help. Keep us posted!

how to create a amazon cloud machine using ec2

I am new to the amazon world.
I have got an amazon ec2 machine with it's public dns and a .pem file . i have connected to the machine using putty by generating a ppk file . now i am able to login to the remote machine using root user. Can someone help me how to create a remote desktop machine or as a cloud machine like the way windows has a rdp feature so that i can install the software. Do i need to install vncserver on it ?. if yes, is there any handy video or documentation which can provide me steps to connect . i have to install appache 2 and mysql on it.
Appreciate your help.
P.S. I can't see any instance on the amzon ec2 which can be created with the machine dns i have got.
Thanks.
1) To see you instance in AWS Console, you need to choose region, where that ec2 server is deployed.
Click on right top menu, there is list of regions there.
2) As we understood, you need to install LAMP Server on that instance.
There are lots of examples how to do it (without GUI, using command line interface).
Find them easily typing how to setup lamp server on ubuntu/centos, depending on your OS.

Disable NIC via RDP on AWS EC2 instance

I've made a mistake - disabled a NIC on a AWS EC2 instance. Currently I'm trying to get access to it. Google search gave me 3 possible solutions:
Create VPC and add a NIC for it - that didn't work for me. Actually I couldn't access to it even from another machine inside the VPC.
Detach the volume and attach to other instance. Load a registry hive and try to enable NIC via registry settings - that also didn't work for me. It seems there are about 100 keys that should be changed (created 2 registry snapshot and compare them) - it's not worth a try.
Detach the volume and attach to other instance. Load a registry hive and try to set AutoAdminLogon. And add a script
netsh interface set interface "Local Area Connection 2" enabled
to HKLM/.../RunOnce folder.
This third solution doesn't work for me because AutoLogon doesn't work for some reason. I'm sure AutoLogon doesn't work because in the other case the key from RunOnce folder will be removed. But it's still there!
I've create a new intance (let it be Instance0), go to register and set 3 keys: AutoAdminLogon, DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword.
Add a key with "netsh ..." to RunOnce folder. Disable NIC, restart the instance and ... it worked!
Then I disable NIC on this intance. Create a new intance - Instance1. Attach the volume from Instance0. Load "%Instance0-Windows%\System32\config\SOFTWARE" hive (It's HKLM/Software). Make the same operations as I did, attach the volume to Instace0, start it and ... it doesn't work!
My guess is that there are some differences between setting keys for your local machine and settings key using load hive for registry of not the local machine.
Can anyone help me in this problem? The question is not "Why does auto logon not work?" The question is "How to get access to the Instance0?" It seems for me that getting an access via autoLogon would be very easy if autoLogon works. If anyone knows a different method, that would be really appreciated.
it's easy, just allocate a new NIC in the same advisability zone on the ES2 instance, then attached the new NIC to the instance and allocate new Elastic IP and associate it to the new NIC, then use remote login to log into the EC2 instance using the new Elastic IP.
after login to the ES2 instance you have the choice to reconnect the old local area connection or stay on the new local area connection, best practice is to reconnect the old one because it increase the bandwidth available to your instance.
and have a nice day :)
Easy way is to make an AMI from that instance.
Then fire up the AMI with User Data Code (Powershell script) to enable the NIC
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud -> User Data
Enabling and Disabling Network Adapters with PowerShell
If anyone else needs this in future this is how i resolved my issue.
Added a new network interface via the console.
attached an elastic IP to the new nic
connected via RDP to the new elastic IP
removed the new nic and reverted back to the original one.
disconnected via RDP
reconnected on the original and it worked.