How I RDP’ed into a Windows EC2 Instance from Linux

So here’s a fun story.

As part of my ongoing cloud security training with CloudSec Network, I was given a practical task:

“Launch a Windows Server 2019 EC2 instance on AWS and connect to it remotely via RDP”, but I’m on Linux

It sounded straightforward… but it turned into a valuable learning experience that made me appreciate the little details in secure cloud configurations.

Let me walk you through exactly what I did, what worked, what didn’t, and what I’d do differently next time.

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Step 1: Launching the Instance

I headed over to the AWS Console and launched a Windows Server 2019 Base instance. Nothing fancy, I went with the free-tier option (t2.micro) and downloaded the .pem key, I’d need it later to decrypt the Windows admin password.

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Step 2: Setting Up Security (This Is Important!)

Here’s where I paused:

“Do I really want the world RDP’ing into this thing?”

Of course not.

So instead of opening RDP (port 3389) to the world (0.0.0.0/0), I added a custom rule to allow access only from my public IP.

That way, only I could connect. Secure and simple.

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Step 3: Decrypting the Admin Password

After a few minutes (because Windows takes time to boot and generate credentials), I:

1. Clicked Connect > RDP Client
2. Uploaded my .pem file
3. Decrypted the password

Got my Administrator password. So far, so good.

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Step 4: Connecting from Linux (Let the Fun Begin)

Here’s the fun part, I’m on Linux. No Remote Desktop Connection here. So I installed Remmina, a great RDP client:

sudo apt install remmina -y

Then I tried to connect using the public IP address of the EC2 instance.

Nothing.

Tried again. Same error.

Then it hit me:

“What if I use the Public DNS instead of the IP?”

Boom, it worked.

I was in 🎉

What I Learned

• AWS makes cross-platform cloud ops totally doable
• Remmina works great for remote Windows access
• The Public DNS is more reliable than the IP in some cases
• Always restrict access to your IP, don’t expose RDP to the world

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Final Thoughts

As someone diving deeper into cloud and infrastructure, moments like this, where theory meets practice, really cement the learning. If you’re a Linux user working with AWS Windows environments, Remmina is your friend.

Let me know if you’d like to see this in video or walkthrough format.