Test Remote Desktop connection

K2 may provide online, cloud-hosted virtual K2 environments for training events, product evaluation, product testing or other short-term requirements ["events"]. These K2-provided virtual environments are hosted on a cloud service [Microsoft Azure] which is exposed through the internet. Users normally access these hosted virtual environments using the Microsoft Remote Desktop connection tool.

This article describes how you can test whether a computer and the underlying network infrastructure is configured correctly to allow the remote desktop connection tool to work with these cloud-hosted environments. K2 provides a dedicated cloud environment that is used exclusively for testing Remote Desktop connectivity, and you will be connecting to this Test environment to perform the tests.

Important notes about the tests you are about to perform

• These tests will only verify that the computer and network are set up correctly for Remote Desktop Connections to work with the infrastructure used for the K2-provided virtual environments. You will be connecting to a dedicated Test-only environment to perform the tests. The virtual environment used during the event is a different environment, and may not be available until that event starts. You will receive the connection information to connect to your dedicated virtual environment before the event starts.
• Your virtual environment will have a different IP address and DNS name than the Test environment that you will use to perform the connectivity tests. If your network administrator needs to make firewall exceptions based on IP address/DNS name, please ask them to review the Network Administrator Notes section of theTesting Remote Desktop Connectivity [Full Guide]
• If you use a different computer or different network during the Event, you may need to perform these tests again to verify that the other computer/network can connect successfully.
• We will use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection to connect to the virtual environment, both for the tests and during the Event. You should have Remote Desktop Connection installed and operational on your computer before attempting these tests. If you are not using Microsoft Windows, you may need to download the appropriate client application for your operating system. Note that the Remote Desktop Connection tool is not provided or supported by K2.
• The Screenshots provided may not exactly match the screens on your machine, but the steps should be the same.

Quick Test

1. To test whether a computer will be able to connect to a K2-provided, cloud-hosted instance on the internet, please download the K2RDPTest.rdp connection file in the Downloads section on the right. [If .rdp file downloads are prohibited in your environment, please download the Testing Remote Desktop Connectivity [Full Guide] from the Downloads section, and follow the instructions under the Manual Test heading in the document.]
2. When downloading the .rdp 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.
   
3. 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:
   Username:Denallix\K2RDPTest
   Password:K2pass!
   [password is case sensitive]
   
4. Once the .rdp file is opened, you will be prompted to connect to the environment. Click Connector OK to connect the remote server. You may be presented with security warning dialog boxes similar to the ones below. You may click Connect to accept the security warning [The hosted environment is safe to connect to]
   
5. Your computer will attempt to connect to the remote server
   
6. You should not need to provide the credentials again to log into the Test environment, but if required, you may log on to the test environment using the same credentials as before:
   Username:Denallix\K2RDPTest
   Password:K2pass!
   [password is case sensitive]
7. If the connection was successful, you should see a confirmation message on the remote desktop, similar to the screenshot below:
   
8. If you can see the success message screen, the connection test was successful and you have verified that Remote Desktop Connection will work on the current computer and network during the Event. Please log off from the remote desktop environment by clicking Start and selecting Log Off.
   
   

Quick Test Completed

If the test was successful you can stop here. Remember that you will use a different hosted environment during the event itself. You will receive the details for your dedicated virtual environment once it has been provisioned. The virtual environment used during the event is a different environment, and may not be available until that event starts. You will receive the connection information to connect to your dedicated virtual environment before the event starts.

If the test was not successful, please download the Testing Remote Desktop Connectivity [Full Guide] from the Downloads section on the right, and follow the instructions and troubleshooting steps in the guide.