Windows Server 2022 — RRAS NAT service stops after reboot — Fix & Prevention

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution — Primary Fix
7. Solution — Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Internet egress for internal subnets fails after restart because NAT is not active.

Environment & Reproduction

Windows Server 2022 build 20348 with RRAS role and dual NIC routing host.

Get-Service RemoteAccess
Get-NetNat
Get-NetIPInterface | Select InterfaceAlias,InterfaceMetric,ConnectionState

Root Cause Analysis

RRAS dependency or startup type mismatch causes service not to initialize on boot.

Quick Triage

Inspect RemoteAccess service state and recent startup events.

sc qc RemoteAccess
Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 60 | Where-Object Message -match 'RemoteAccess|RRAS'

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate NIC role mapping and NAT object persistence.

Get-NetNat
Get-NetIPAddress
Get-RemoteAccess

Solution — Primary Fix

Set service to automatic and reconfigure NAT binding if missing.

Set-Service RemoteAccess -StartupType Automatic
Start-Service RemoteAccess
if (-not (Get-NetNat -Name CorpNAT -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) { New-NetNat -Name CorpNAT -InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix 10.10.0.0/16 }

Solution — Alternative Approaches

Use edge firewall/router for NAT and keep RRAS for VPN only.

Remove-NetNat -Name CorpNAT -Confirm:$false
Install-RemoteAccess -VpnType Vpn

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Internal clients should reach internet and NAT translations should appear.

Get-NetNatSession
Test-NetConnection 1.1.1.1 -InformationLevel Detailed

Rollback Plan

Restore previous RRAS config backup if routing behavior changes unexpectedly.

netsh ras dump > C:Tempras-backup.txt
# Restore using scripted netsh commands from backup

Prevention & Hardening

Document interface bindings and monitor RemoteAccess service after patch cycles.

Get-Service RemoteAccess | Select Status,StartType
Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName '*RRAS*'

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

May coincide with NIC metric changes and default route flapping.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Windows Server 2022.

View all Windows Server 2022 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

Microsoft Learn RRAS and NAT deployment for Windows Server 2022.