Configuring the Apple AirPort Extreme for use with WHS

I have an Apple Airport Extreme Gigabit Edition and am using Windows Home Server (WHS). WHS allows remote access so that you can remote desktop into your home computers from anywhere. To do this, your router needs to be configured to open up certain ports. To do this, WHS used UPnP (Universal Plug and Play).

Unfortunately, the Apple Airport Extreme doesn't support UPnP. No big deal, I'll show you how to set it up manually.

1. First we will need the MAC and IP addresses of the WHS box. We'll need to remote desktop into the WHS box to get it (you can skip to step 5 if you already know how).
2. On your remote PC click Start and type mstsc and press enter. You should see a window like this:
3. Type in the name of your Home Server and click Connect. Mine is called "homeserver" (I'm very creative that way).
4. You will be prompted for a username/password. Type administrator for the username and use the password that you setup initially.
5. After you are remotely logged into your WHS bow, click Start, Control Panel, Network Connections, Local Area Connection.
6. You should see a dialog appear. Click on the Support tab and then click Details. Note the Physical Address (i.e. MAC address) and IP address (yours will be different from mine).
7. Start up the AirPort Utility.
8. Click on the Manual Setup button.
9. First we will setup a DHCP reservation so that our WHS will always get the same IP address. Click on the Internet icon along the top, them on the DHCP tab.
10. Under DHCP Reservations, click the plus button.
11. Under Description type in anything you like (e.g. "Home Server")
12. Be sure the MAC Address radio button is checked and click Continue.
13. Type in the MAC address (don't type the dashes) and the last segment of your IP address and click Done. Your Home Server box will always get the same IP address. (Note: my IP address is 197, yours will likely be different).
14. Next we setup Port Forwarding so that HTTP, HTTPS and Remote Desktop requests from the Internet are routed to your WHS box. Click on the NAT tab, then of the Configure Port Mapping... button.
15. Click on the plus button under the Allow list box.
16. Leave Services alone
17. Under Public TCP ports type: 80, 443, 4125
18. Leave Public UDC Ports blank
19. Under Private IP Address, enter the IP address of your WHS box
20. Under Private TCP ports type: 80, 443, 4125
21. Leave Private UDC Ports blank
22. Your dialog should look similar to this:
23. Click Continue

You have now configured HTTP, HTTPS and Remote Desktop services for Window Home Server in your Apple AirPort Extreme router. But let's test things out be make sure.

1. Go to the Windows Home Server Console by double clicking the tray icon.
2. After you log in, click on the Setting button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
3. Then click on Remote Access. After a few seconds you should see a green check mark next to the Router icon and it should read "Manually configured".