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Hamachi – a simple VPN

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Connecting machine-to-machine securely, across the 'net.

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A common question I get at Ask Leo! is how to connect to disparate networks across the internet. For example a small business owner might want to connect to his workplace from his home network, or on a business trip one might want to connect to a work or home network as well.

Aside from Remote Desktop, which can be a little tricky to get working between local networks across the internet, the answer has always been a VPN, or virtual private network. In fact, VPNs are the solution of choice for most large corporations whose employees need access to the corporate network from remote locations. VPNs are secure, allow for various types of authentication, and when they work ... well, it's just like being there.

The problem is that VPNs can be difficult to setup - especially for novice or non-technical users.

"Hamachi is a very lightweight VPN client ..."

Now I actually have the same scenarios that I've listed above: I travel occasionally, and I also have a my wife's small business several miles away that I would like to connect to more easily and directly.

Enter Hamachi. Hamachi is a very lightweight VPN client that I've been playing with for the last couple of days. It doesn't provide network-to-network connectivity like a traditional VPN might, but rather you choose which clients machines you want on your VPN by running the client software on them.

When connected using the VPN, it's the equivalent of being connected directly on a local area network. Now while name resolution doesn't seem to be in place yet, you can browse the network shares of the remote computer using it's Hamachi assigned IP address, connect via remote desktop if you like, and do pretty much anything you might if the computer were nearby on the same LAN. On-line games, naturally, stress this beta technology the most, and the support forums have many helpful pointers and hints for getting LAN based games to work across the Hamachi VPN.

Hamachi bills itself as a "mediated" - meaning that clients are registered with a Hamachi service so that they can be located and the initial connections established. All data transfer is directly peer-to-peer, secure and private.

Hamachi is in beta, it's free, simple and quick. You'll find it at hamachi.cc.

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Recent Comments

hi leo i think ure forum its a good way to learn about this vpn stuff im just writing cuz i wanna now if theres a place on the net where i can find some ip addresses cuz im interested in share my files with somebody and to play some games but i dont know maybe u can tell me thanks

Posted by: ROGER at April 9, 2006 11:00 PM

After reading your article I found Hamachi to be just what I had been looking for to tighten up my remote desktop security. I am not a techy but found Hamachi simple to set up. I had my VPN up and running in less than 10 minutes

Posted by: Paul Gay at September 4, 2006 12:43 PM

I first heard about Hamachi from "the other Leo", Leo Laporte of Call for Help TV show. Found your podcast and you convinced me to try it.

Hamachi is excellent for running VNC remote access and for sharing iTunes audio libraries easily. You just point VNC at your Hamachi IP and it connects you up. No crazy configuring to get it to use the correct adapter, its all automatic. And iTunes is even easier. Just tick the boxes to share your libraries, and to look for shared libraries.

Now no matter where I am or how I access the internet, I have my music streamed over the net, and can login to my home machine and control it - all for free. Is this a great country or what?

Posted by: Junior Bodine at September 16, 2006 09:24 PM

great program as is logmein free version. I am using hamachi in conjuction with logmein free version to Share folders, monitor clients, instant message clients, one feature that i like is the securty, you can share folders over the net without having to share them over a local lan at the same time. The only problem I am having with it is the printer sharing. But it is just a matter of time before I figure that out.

Posted by: david at January 14, 2007 10:20 AM

hey thanks for your time,

was wondering how to get hamachi to work with rome total war game. someone told me i had to put the hamachi ip address in the preference file for rtw but not sure where or how and information???

Posted by: brian at January 27, 2007 11:41 AM

I may be misunderstanding the capability and purpose of Hamachi and other similiar applications. I originally was googling remote desktop viewing and found you article and podcast.

I have a friend in the Philippines and we thought it would be fun to be able to watch a movie together. I had assumed that aps like GoToMyPC would allow us to play a movie or music on one computer and watch and listen on both.

Is this beyond the capability of Hamachi? So far all I have been able to do is to chat much like an instant message service.

Thanks for the help.

Posted by: Michael at March 7, 2008 09:23 AM

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

All Hamachi does is set up a virtual network between your
machines. In otherwords it's as if they were connected to
the same router.

I don't know how you expect to watch a movie together. In
fact I can't think of a way to do that with two computers no
matter how they're connected. (I'm sure suggestions will
follow :-).

But even if there is some kind of a way, my GUESS would be
that the internet speed you're dealing with is nowhere near
fast enough to stream/share video or perhaps even audio.

Leo


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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at March 9, 2008 09:14 PM

I am getting error which says "Failed to automatically determine your web proxy configuration" I tried this in Internet Explorer: Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings. and set it to auto-detect on.

In Hamachi:

1. Preferences > Detailed Configuration > and
2. Using Auto-Detect in IE, set the proxy setting to Disabled
3. Using a proxy, enter the settings from IE in there.
4. A script is used in IE, use the settings your admin has given you for proxy connectivity.

Then also its not working

Posted by: Aditya at June 29, 2008 10:33 AM

Hi Leo, geat web site.

I tried Hamachi yesterday after reading this page.
Set up was easy between my Vista Ultimate machine and my XP Pro laptop, but neither machine is allowed access to my XP Home Edition machine. It asks for a username and password and none of my passwords or names will work.
What's worse is that the XP Home machine can access both the Vista and XP Pro computers without even using a password. This, and the fact that Hamachi needs to be on all the time for the VPN to function remotely, seems scary from a security point of view.
My web browsers will not access the help site as they deem it unsafe.
I suggest you look at a similiar program called AnyPlace Control, which has a full control remote desktop feature. It can also remotely shut down and boot up the remote machine.
It's not free(around $50), but comes with a thirty day trial for five clients.
Keep up the good work Leo.

Posted by: Anth at July 23, 2008 05:46 PM

i want to know if there are anyway to use a VPN without installing a private network adapter?

Posted by: humaghadu sitwakentoch at August 30, 2008 09:51 PM

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