![]() As the connection is established, the Hamachi network interface is assigned its own IP address in a range separate from the one you’re already using. To create or join a Hamachi network, you click the network button and are prompted to supply a network name and password. This Hamachi interface can be found alongside the others when you view your network connections in Windows, but it remains disabled until you turn on Hamachi using the aforementioned power button. ![]() When you install Hamachi, it creates its own virtual network interface on your system that has configuration parameters separate from those of your regular wired or wireless adapters. The first time you run the software a brief tutorial takes you through a tour of the interface, but it’s almost unnecessary since there are just three buttons on the client - the power button activates the Hamachi interface, the network button lets you create or join an existing network, and the gear button is for configuring application settings - of which there are only a handful. Hamachi uses a very minimalist interface that’s simple and easy to use. (The server does send regular keep-alive signals to clients, however, in order to keep idle connections up and running.) The mediation server authenticates clients through the exchange of encryption keys, tracks clients so they can locate each other behind routers and firewalls and helps facilitate the setting up of secure connection between systems.Īpplied Networking claims that once the mediation server has successfully established a connection between Hamachi clients, the secure connection is solely between the peers and no encrypted traffic passes through Hamachi servers. It employs an external server it calls a mediation server that acts as a sort of directory and matchmaker for Hamachi clients. To get around the various obstacles to a successful VPN connection, Hamachi borrows a technique used by peer-to-peer applications such as instant messaging (IM) software. This usually prevents VPNs from working because the modified packets are interpreted as having been compromised. The problem is that in order to translate the addresses between the private and public networks, NAT must modify the address information within network packets. NAT is used on countless networks these days and lets multiple systems on a private LAN communicate with the Internet using a single public IP address. And even if you’re using the same equipment or software on both ends, a VPN can be a pain in the neck when you’re trying to connect two networks using network address translation (NAT). For starters, differences in implementation between manufacturers of routers, firewalls and client software can and often do cause interoperability problems. There are several reasons that conventional VPN configuration can be so difficult. We found that Hamachi does, in fact, make setting up a secure connection between systems a relatively simple affair that could easily be performed even by someone without significant networking expertise. By contrast, Applied Networking Inc., rather confidently calls its Hamachi software a zero-config VPN application. ![]() The catch with VPNs, however, is that they can be hard to set up. These connection methods were largely supplanted by the advent of virtual private networks (VPNs), which have made connecting remote computers significantly cheaper by setting up an encrypted and “tunneled” connection across the Internet, allowing multiple computers or networks to communicate securely across an inherently insecure medium. Prior to the existence of the Internet as we know it today, if you needed a secure connection between two systems on remote networks, your choices were essentially to use a dedicated high-speed circuit like a T1 line or to rely on a slow modem, with both options often getting quite expensive.
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