I've never used Windows Remote Desktop protocol to connect to a computer across the Internet... Just out of curiosity what info. (ip address and/or port number if any)
WOULD you type in to make the initial connection, ASSUMING that the computer is behind a hardware firewall

Do you type the wide area address of the remote computer with a port extension?

Or a combination of the WAN address and the private IP address? Have you already read this?
Remote Desktop Connection: frequently asked questions
I couldn't find anything about routers, ports, or IP address in that tutorial that answers my question. However, I found some stuff here:

http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20051122_how_to_use_remote_desktop_connection_rdc.html

But I'm still confused... In this tutorial the guy says to type the private IP address of the computer you want to connect to along with the listening port... It just seems so weird... Say you type an address like 192.168.1.67:50001 IP address w/port number.. What does remote desktop do when you click connect? How does it actually find the router that you connect through, without you typing in the wide area address?


while I would do this. Get two computers side-by-side. Maybe your laptop and your desktop. Have them both looked up to your router with access to the Internet. Go through the procedure for both computers and at some point you will get an instant message or an e-mail to the effect that somebody wants to get in contact with you using remote desk top. Or something like that. So it you confirm and the message gets sent back some way. As Ira call, all you really need is the name of the computer. And the name of the local network. But in any CASE, one computer can communicate with another computer even without using IP addresses. The server already has traced a route and when you go to make connection the server already has that information and can find the other computer for you.
I'm not sure how it works, but the key thing is that has to be two computers and two people. One person sends a request in to some central server that forwards the request on to the e-mail or instant message of the other person's computer. Then the other person gives an acknowledgment and permission to go ahead and the message is sent back so that the server gets a full trace of who sent the message and who responded to the message. That's enough information for the server to take care of everything.
Besides the Microsoft remote desktop, there are other services available. Like a PC anywhere, or go to my PC. There's different things like that and trying to use a local IP addresses really kind of futile. Most networks now use some kind of DHCP. So from one data the next you might not know what your local address is anyway.
For security reasons you can't just make a connection using IP addresses. It's done through a form of authentication that uses a third-party.
Anyway, it works. And remarkably well.In the tutorial you read that says to type the (private) address & port #, it was probably talking about using rdp in a LAN setting. You on the other hand want to know how to do this in a WAN setting. So you would type the public address; no need for port # because rdp does that for you. However, the problem you will come across will be router & firewall issues. There needs to be "port forwarding" in order for the device, most likely the router, to know where to send the rdp connection to. That's where you would PUT the private ip of the pc you want to rdp to.I just set up an RDP connection to a remote computer sitting behind a hardware firewall... Yes, it was the public ip that was needed... I'm currently connected to my dad's computer and running some virus scans... I ran into a problem with authentication at first, because there was no Username/password setup on his computer (i guess you cannot use a "null" password) so I had to have him set up a password on his account... Pretty neat program, RDP.