Summary: Hamachi is a free, easy-to-use VPN that allows you to connect machines across the internet as if they were right there on your local network.
One of the very frequent questions I get is about connecting two or more machines, or even networks, across the internet. The most common scenario is when traveling ... you're on the road, and you need to get at that one file that you left at home or at work, on a different computer.
Enter "VPN"s, or Virtual Private Networks.
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VPNs are exactly what the name implies: a virtual network of one or more machines on top of a public network like the internet. When two machines join the same VPN, it's nearly as if they were next to each other. File and printer sharing, as well as other applications such as remote desktop, work like they would on a local area network - except the machines are separated, and connected only over the internet.
I've talked about Hamachi before, in my podcast. Now, after actively using it for several weeks, I'm recommending it as a simple, quick, lightweight, and free VPN solution.
To use Hamachi, you download and run a small client application from the Hamachi website. When this client runs, it implements a virtual network adapter, and you're given an additional IP address that identifies you on any virtual network you join. You then create a virtual a virtual network by name, assigning it a password. Now anyone running the Hamachi client can join your network by connecting to it by name, and supplying the password.
It really is that easy.
I now have the Hamachi client automatically starting on several machines, so that regardless of where in the world I am, if I'm connected to the internet those machines appear on my virtual local network.
As an example, I frequently print things on a printer at my wife's business from home. In the past that's involved transferring the file to a mutually accessible location on the internet, then using remote desktop to connect to the remote computer, downloading the file, firing up the appropriate application and finally hitting print in that application.
With both machines on the VPN, I simply print directly to the remote printer at my wife's business from the computer on my desk at home.
What I'll call my acid test was a recent trip in my RV. The RV park has free WiFi, so naturally I connect up and do a fair amount of work when I can. This time, after booting up my laptop and connecting to the internet, I was automatically connected to my machines at home and the machine at my wife's business. I was able to remote desktop to a machine at home, copy files from a second machine there, and once again print directly to the business machine. All transparently.
The VPN connection is encrypted for security. Aside from contacting the Hamachi server initially, to locate the members of your VPN, all actual network activity is directly peer-to-peer. In fact, if the Hamachi mediation server goes down, you remain connected, and can continue to use your VPN without a problem.
Hamachi works across NAT routers, even if there are NAT routers at both ends of the connection. In nearly all cases it doesn't require any reconfiguring of the routers - no port-forwarding required. All machines running the Hamachi client are simply and individually visible, even if they are all behind the same router.
So far I've run into one drawback to Hamachi.
It does rely on that mediation server to establish network connections. That means if the server is down, while existing networks and connections will continue to work, new clients cannot join a VPN, and new VPNs cannot be created. For example if you reboot while the mediation server is down, you'll not be able to reconnect to your VPN until it comes back up. Fortunately this happens infrequently, and planned outages are announced in advance.
There are other remote VPN solutions out there; Real VNC is one popular alternative. Similarly, other remote access solutions, such as GoToMyPC, are also popular.
But for simple, inexpensive, and basic connectivity, Hamachi is working well for me, and I encourage you to give it a try. I've played with Hamachi exclusively on Windows, but versions for OSX and Linux are also available.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Hamachi - a simple VPN (podcast)
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Ask Leo! - How can I share my hard disk remotely?
Article C2547 - February 6, 2006
Well that’s the problem I think you are also going to run into, I have tried to re-gain ownership of my network and run into a brick wall on doing so. It’s become increasing difficult to regain access to it. Trust me I’ve tried several times and I have sent an email to Hamachi Support group asking for them to help. So far I’ve gotten nothing out of them except silence.
This is the part that’s really confusing to me when I try to regain access to it gives me this error message. "That it does not own or participate in any networks” What exactly does this mean? Can I not be in my own room when I’m trying to transfer it? I’m confused about this part.
And yes I can rejoin the group but the problem is I have no control over it anymore. If I need to remove some older clients I can’t. And after a while with other joining the room it can lock you down because you can only have a certain amount of clients in a room at one time. This is where the problem lies. I have no control over my own room so I can remove older clients that are no longer valid.
Thanks Leo, I would really like to see how you get yours resolved if you do. I’ll be in checking in periodically to see if anything changes.
You can reach me at this email addy if you figure it out.
Thanks!
Posted by: Rick at April 11, 2008 9:27 AMI am trying to connect to two different XP Pro computers from an XP Home computer using Hamachi. I can browse one of the Pro's, but not the other. The one I can't browse gives an error message that says something like, "this login type is not allowed".
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Posted by: TA at May 9, 2008 7:07 AMhamachi sais the that i lost connection with [Email removed]server
Help me what should i do??
Posted by: Johan Nordström at May 24, 2008 5:51 AMI've tried installing Hamachi several times, and each time I try, I get the same error message that it cannot "connect to the Hamachi server". In other words, I can't even boot up the program. I've tried disabling my firewall and everything, but nothing seems to be working. I have a DGL-4500 router, but I don't know if that would be problematic or not. Should I bypass my router by hooking up my broadband connection directly to my computer, or is it something else?
Posted by: Mr. Saturday at June 28, 2008 10:40 AMim trying to run hamachi so i can link my laptop to my home network. but i want to do it only with one pc running hamachi at home and my laptop. my problem is i got 3 pc at home running ip rang 192.168.2.*** and only one of them running hamachi. and when i connect with my laptop when out of town i can only view that one pc at home running hamachi and not the rest of my network. i want to get this working with only hamachio running on one pc at home. any ideas?
04-Jan-2009
Hi,
Read yur article and now Im trying out Hamachi for the first time as me & some friends were trying to come up with the easiest way to file share...Its set up on 3 machines, firewall access granted etc & tested the pings & chat to make sure it works & its fine. However when tryig to browse other machines, a logon prompt appears with 'the machine name'\guest and the password prompt. (eg. Gail\Guest)and we are unable to connect using NT passwords for machines... I assumed it defaulted to Guest user, but enabling guest account returns a promt saying address is not accessible. We've removed all Nt passwords from machines & still no luck. I dont know which password i'm supposed to input. Any help.
Urgent!!!
Posted by: Sean at January 25, 2009 1:56 PMI am having a bit of trouble with Hamachi and remote desktop. I can remote out from one of my computers but can'r remote in to it. I am sure it is just a setting but not sure how to fix it, please help?
Posted by: Vicki at March 3, 2009 11:00 AMI'm wondering if I can do the following with Hamachi.
I travel a lot. I have access to free WiFi at my travel location. I want to access internet and e-mail remotely and securely through my home PC and see it on my travel Windows XP Home Edition laptop.
At home I have both a Ubuntu 9.04 PC and a Windows XP (Home Edition) PC running through a router. I know that Hamachi has a Linux version that might run on my Ubuntu machine.
Can I use Hamachi to run (or view) a secure internet on my laptop through one of the two home machines?
Even if I have to run the internet remotely at home by using my laptop as a remote "terminal", I would consider this a success.
Posted by: Jim Clark at July 4, 2009 4:38 PMIn my case, actually I can connect to my server but through server IP address not Server name like \\myserver so I can like to exchange server or create map network drive.the Login widows showed and I login as my domain and account name and saved it.I was wondering if could get any reply.
Posted by: Bobby at July 28, 2009 7:02 AMthanks.
Bobby
hi there, i have a problem that i find hard to solve and people also find it hard to help me, i run a wireless network in my town and its being used now by over 300 people now the problem i have is most games they cant play cuase they cant see each other when joining a game over lan like COd4,5 they can just add a ip in of the host and join any server hosting the game but then u get games like your normal lan games that cant be joint like that and hamachi could work great for that the problem is hamachi needs to be connected to the internet to work and we are not using the internet, how can i get this people connected so that they can play anygame over the wireless connection ?
Posted by: Anthony at August 12, 2009 4:19 AM