This topic is pretty straight forward. Once you have your Azure Windows Server spun up, you can connect to it using RDP tool if your source is a Windows operating System.

But when you are in Linux the story is different, as it does not have the RDP tool. We have plenty of open source tools that we can use to make a connection from Linux Box to Windows Server.

Since we are discussing about Azure, I am using an Azure VM. Below is the details of that machine:

We are going to use the “RDesktop” tool to connect from Linux to Windows. Installation of RDesktop is pretty simple. You may google/bing for assistance, or check this link for the complete installation guide in RedHat/CentOS/Fedora Operating System.

Once you have your RDesktop setup. Enable the RDP port- 3389 in your Azure virtual Machine. You can achieve this by adding “Inbound Security Rules” into your Network Security Group, via the Azure Portal.

For demo purposes, I am allowing all incoming traffic for the port – 3389. However, incase of production environment, you may have to provide appropriate rules for your NSG (Network Security Group) and ACLs (Access Control List) for better security.

Once RDesktop and RDP ports are configured. You may now run the RDesktop command to connect to your Virtual Machine.

Command: sudo rdesktop <IP Address>

As you can see in the above screenshot, the connection fails. This is an expected behavior, because by default the RDP connection is set to “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication”

In order to connect from Linux machines, we have to disable the NLA.

Now give it another try, the remote connection works like a charm !