How to Set Up Check Point VPN and Remote Desktop access (Windows)

hello so today we are going to talk

about how to set up

checkpoint VPN and remote desktop

this is a method for

remoting into the work Network

from a computer that you've got off site

somewhere typically at home you know

work from home scenario

so there's two components to this and

one is the

checkpoint VPN

which is what actually facilitates the

connection between your home network

and the work Network and then remote

desktop gets you into your actual work

PC

so the things that you're going to need

for this

you're going to need the checkpoint

software the checkpoint VPN software

that's a download that's going to be

provided to you

by your I.T person

this is something that you'll install on

the

computer that you're remoting from so

for example your home PC

and then the rest of the stuff that

you're going to need is information and

this again will be provided by your it

person you're going to need some server

info

which is going to consist of an IP

address

and possibly a port number on the end of

it

that'll be that will be provided for you

you're going to have a username that's

specifically for the VPN

and a password that's specifically for

the VPN

and then finally you're going to need

a remote desktop IP address that is the

IP address

on your work Network

of your work PC

and then you need to know the username

uh for that work PC

and sometimes that username includes a

some domain information along with the

username you're again your it person is

going to provide this so however they

provide it to you that's how that needs

to be put in and then finally your

remote desktop password that's basically

that's the same password that you use

when you're accessing your PC at work

so we're going to walk through

all the steps

required to set this up but this is the

stuff that you need the only download

you need is this checkpoint VPN software

the rest of it is information

so I am doing this setup from a Windows

10 desktop

this will also work from other versions

of Windows if you have Windows 11 for

example

that's not a problem

this will still work on Windows 11. you

know some of the screens may look a

little different but the process is

still essentially the same

so the first thing that you need is that

VPN software the checkpoint VPN software

you would have been provided some kind

of a link

most likely to download this so I'm just

going to assume that it's in the

downloads folder on this computer and

sure enough uh there it is that's I

shouldn't really act surprised I put

this there but you'll have something

similar maybe you saved it to your

desktop

maybe you saved it to your downloads

folder maybe you haven't downloaded it

yet if so you need to download this and

it's typically going to have a name that

looks like this with a version number at

the beginning yours may differ

and then checkpoint VPN

so we are going to run the installer

file here

depending on how your computer is set up

it may give you one of those little

Windows prompts about you know are you

sure you want to allow this to make

changes on your computer different

computers have different settings there

if you do get that prompt just say yes

and then we're going to walk through the

wizard here

so we're going to start off let me

minimize this down and make it a little

easier to see

we're going to start off by clicking

next

now amongst the client products choices

here we're going to choose the default

which is endpoint security VPN that's

what we want so we click next

I'm going to accept accept the software

license agreement you can read down

through there if you want but it's

boilerplate stuff

and we click next

and then it's asking where to install a

software to the default location is

almost always what you want to let it

choose what it's already done

and we click install

so it typically only takes a couple

minutes for the installation to happen

and meanwhile you could go ahead and

gather together

the information

that I mentioned in the previous section

of the video that you need to complete

this setup

so much of that information is going to

be asked for

by the VPN software here and then some

of it's going to be for the remote

desktop part of things

and now the installation is complete

so the software now exists on the

computer

but it's not yet configured that's what

we're going to take care of next so

we're going to click finish

and then let's go down here to what is

called the system tray

on the computer that's where these these

small icons are down here near the clock

and

if your computer is set up like mine you

have to use this up Arrow here to Show

additional icons on the computer the one

we're looking for

is this gold padlock if you hover over

it it says checkpoint endpoint security

what I'm going to do is I'm going to

left click and drag that down here and

release it what that will do is that

will mean that that icon is going to

show up without me having to hunt up

here for it

the reason is is we're going to need

that when we connect the VPN software on

a fairly regular basis

so we're going to right click on this

gold padlock

and we're going to choose connect

and the first time we're launching it

here this is the normal message to

receive which is there's no site

configured

would you like to configure a new site

what that's referring to is by site it

means a information about where you want

to connect to

we haven't provided that information yet

so we're going to do so now we're going

to click yes

and now there's a wizard to walk us

through this and it's going to ask us

for the information it needs here

so we click next

and now the first thing it's going to

ask for is server address or name and

that's going to be the server

information that I referenced earlier in

the video that's provided by your it

person typically it's going to be an IP

address sometimes that IP address will

be followed by a colon

with another number which is a port

number

but either way you want to key that in

exactly as

it was provided

I'm blurring it here

because uh this is real information for

a client and I don't really want that

showing up now what I like to do is also

click display name

and what that will let me do here is get

rid of

uh this you know ugly server info and

port number and type in something that's

kind of a friendly

reminder so we're gonna just put in my

office you could put in the name of your

company there if you want to it's really

just a descriptive thing and it's just a

preference it's not mandatory that you

do this but I like to do this

and now we click next so it's going to

actually now try and reach out

to your network

and talk to the checkpoint Gateway

device that's there and establish this

connection in a you know just a basic

way to make sure

communication between your computer

and that site

is working properly

now if you run into a problem here and

this doesn't complete like we're seeing

then contact your it person and they can

help you resolve that but if it is

working you're going to see something

like this which looks like an error but

it's not or it's not one to be concerned

about

it says the site's security certificate

is not trusted

that's actually okay

and I won't go into a lengthy

explanation of why but basically there

are ways of where you can register

what's called an SSL certificate and

embed it on the Gateway and kind of lock

it into your IP address and it kind of

makes it official

but I would say that a vast majority of

small businesses don't bother with that

it's not really

it's not really necessary for the kind

of usage that we're doing here

so we're just going to click trust and

continue

again this is all only just part of the

initial setup you're not going to have

to do this all the time

when it asks for authentication method

we're going to keep the default which is

username and password

and we click next

and there we go the site is created

successfully so now the VPN software

knows how to reach your work Network

so when we click finish here

it's going to ask us would you like to

connect well yeah we're going to go

ahead and do so right now just to test

and make sure everything works properly

so if we click yes

now we see that the site that's selected

here is the one that we labeled my

office if I hadn't put that friendly

label in then you would see your IP

address and you know that that long

number and whatnot

so here is where we're going to put in

the VPN username and VPN password

that you were assigned

again I'm blocking this out because this

is a real person's stuff but you would

just type in

what your

assigned VPN

username and password is

and then you click connect

and it's going to give like a little

progress bar here

and if this completes without error

it will say connection succeeded and

sometimes even makes like a little noise

almost like a

I don't know it's it's it's a hard noise

to describe but down here if we notice

our golden padlock down here again now

notice that it has a Green Dot on it and

every once in a while you'll see some

little squiggly line go by

um

like an EKG or something that basically

is showing signs of life and if you

hover over it it says checkpoint

endpoint security connected to whatever

description you put in client is

compliant so

at this point while this is active like

this your computer is now connected to

the work Network

but you'll notice it doesn't really look

any different you're still looking at

your home desktop

there's this connection there that you

can reach machines over there but that's

about it

so now what we need to do is we need to

set up

the remote desktop connection so you can

get into your work PC

now the remote desktop software is

actually built into Windows 10 and

windows 11. and previous versions of

Windows as well so if we go down here to

the start menu and click Start and we

just start typing in the search field

remote

if we can type that correctly

remote desktop

and you see that right here remote

desktop connection that's what we're

looking for

so we're going to click on that

okay so this is the remote desktop

connection

interface

and the only field that it has here is

computer and then some other text here

we're going to click on this down arrow

for show options it's going to give us a

little bit bigger window with some more

information there okay

so where it says enter the name of the

remote computer

you're most likely not entering a name

here you're actually going to be putting

in

the remote desktop

IP address

that we referenced earlier in the video

so you're going to type that address in

it's possible

that you will have been given some kind

of a port number on this as well

most of the time not but if it however

it was provided to you that information

you'll key that in here where it says

computer

that's basically telling your computer

where to find that computer across the

VPN connection

username you type that in as exactly as

provided as well and that may include a

domain name in front of it or it may

just be your plain username

however it was provided you just type

that in

okay

and then you've got this option here for

allow me to save credentials and what

that means

is

once we actually complete this

connection it's going to ask you for the

password for your work PC

and what you can do is you could have

the remote desktop connection remember

that once you've keyed it in

now there's pros and cons to that and

most of the time

I encourage people to not

tick this box

and here's why

is there a possibility that any other

human being might sit down and use your

work PC or your home PC excuse me

and if so it's probably not a great idea

to make it to where they can connect

into your work computer without having

to enter the password each time

so even though that's a convenience for

you to not have to enter it in it also

means nobody else on your computer that

happens to sit down there would have to

enter it as well

that's not a good security situation so

it's best to leave this unchecked okay

now before we actually connect

to test to make sure that's working we

want to save this because not all these

settings are going to automatically be

saved for us so we're going to choose

save as in this connection settings area

right here

and then we're going to choose the

desktop and you may have to scroll

through the list of choices here to find

your desktop but find Desktop

and then put in

some kind of a descriptive name I'm just

going to say my work PC

that's going to be the name of that and

if we click save

you'll see over here now on the desktop

you see this my work PC now we can

easily use that to Launch

the remote desktop connection in fact

I'll go ahead and close this

so now we got our VPN running

and we want to remote into our work PC

so I'm going to double click that

this is a this should be a one-time only

warning

hey you know it's just a standard

Windows warning we can tell windows

don't ask me again about this for this

computer

and it won't bother us like that in the

future

so we click connect

all right now this is a good sign so we

have now connected or started the

connection process to the remote desktop

and it's asking us for a password

that's generally a good sign that means

the VPN is working

and guess what I can see the computer

you're trying to connect to and I just

need to know what password to type in to

get in there

that's a good sign

so we're going to go ahead and connect

now and we're going to do that by

putting in the password

for our work PC

now again here's another option to

remember

we're not going to choose that for the

reasons that I described earlier we're

just going to click ok

the first time you connect remotely this

is another warning that will come up and

it's just basically confirming hey are

you sure about this yes we are don't ask

again

and click yes

and there we go there we have our remote

desktop

so this is uh now we are connected to

our work PC

and we can interact with that computer

you know pretty much just like we do at

work

so when we want to close uh our

connection

we can actually just click the little

close button right up here in the top

right of this little blue bar

and what that'll do is that'll just

disconnect us from the computer

it even warns us as such but the com the

programs you know whatever you left open

on the work PC will stay open which is

typically what you want you just want to

disconnect from home but still keep

stuff open on the work computer

so the only other thing that you want to

do is when you are done remoting in to

the office if you were to right click on

this gold padlock and choose disconnect

that's a good idea

just to not have that connection to work

open and once it's not connected anymore

it won't show The Green Dot down here

so that is the process for installing

configuring and using

the VPN and remote desktop to your work

office the one thing to keep in mind

this is the most common thing that will

come up

is the VPN that's that gold padlock that

we fiddled with that must be connected

before the remote desktop part will work

if you try to launch the remote desktop

and the VPN is not connected

it's going to give you an error it's not

going to be able to find your computer

because you're not actually connected to

the work Network so make sure the VPN

the gold padlock

is active with its Little Green Dot

before you try using the remote desktop

and you'll be fine

if you have any other questions be sure

to direct those to your it person

and have a great day