What is the "fully qualified name of my Amazon EC2 instance"

Question

I have setup an Ubuntu Amazon EC2 instance and followed this official guide to setup desktop functionality and remote access from Windows :

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/connect-to-linux-desktop-from-windows/

I have followed all the steps successfully and installed ubuntu-desktop and and xrdp as mentioned in the guide.

However, I am stuck with the last step #16 where it tells me to "paste the fully qualified name of your Amazon EC2 instance for the Computer" in Remote Desktop Connection client.

I am not sure what my "fully qualified name of your Amazon EC2 instance for the Computer" is. I've tried various combinations of my instance's public DNS, public IP, private DNS and private IP and also the instance ID without any luck.

Can anybody please help me figure out what am I missing here?

Edit:

This is the error I get when I enter my Public DNS as the fully qualified name :

Patsypatt

It should the public DNS name. Are you sure you're allowing RDP (port 3389) through the firewall (i.e. the security group)? – Impost

@Impost That was it! I added RDP to the inbound rules in security group and it worked like a charm! Thank you so much – Patsypatt

Answer 1

So apparently Public DNS Name IS the fully qualified name. I was missing the RDP inbound rule in my security group for my instance and allowing network traffic on port 3389 worked like a charm.

Thanks to user stdunbar

Patsypatt

Thanks to you and stdunbar for the solution. Just to clarify, I had to add 0.0.0.0/0 as the Source to get it to work. – Voiceful

A further update: my above comment is not for long term use at it lets anyone access your instance. Instead, you should choose "My IP" from the drop down menu under Source to limit access to just your computer or otherwise set an IP range as described here: docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/… – Voiceful