Virtual Private LAN with Hamachi
A friend of mine introduced me to Hamachi a few days ago. Since then I’ve finally gotten around to installing it and playing with it, and I’m really impressed. Hamachi bills itself as a zero-configuration Virtual Private Networking (VPN) application. I personally like to think of it as a zero-configuration Virtual Private LAN application as that is basically what it allows you to create - virtual LANs over the Internet.
What this means is that using Hamachi, you can finally eliminate your traditional VPN endpoint and use Hamachi to securely transport traffic destined for your LAN over the Internet (WAN) For example, take typical Windows / Samba file sharing. Without Hamachi, you would have to connect to a VPN on your home network to access any file shares in your LAN. With Hamachi installed and configured on the server(s) in your LAN, you can access them over the Internet via the Hamachi service without the need to have a VPN connection established to your home network.
Hamachi comes in a free and paid service, is a very simple, straightforward installation, and is compatible with Windows, OS X, and Linux. I have performed the install on all three of these operating systems and it is very straightforward (even the console installation for Linux and OS X is quick and relatively painless). I have successfully used Hamachi from a foreign network and it works just fine.
Hamachi supports NAT to NAT traversal and is able to establish peer-to-peer communications between nodes in 95% of all cases. Hamachi uses industry-standard security algorithms and protocols, and uses an open security architecture allowing verifiability of all security implementations by third parties. When connecting two nodes, Hamachi makes every attempt to connect the nodes directly, but has the capability to use a relay server when direct connections are not possible. Hamachi can also be used to connect LAN segments through some creative routing. With this option you can install Hamachi on a single computer in your LAN and have it act as a gateway to all the machines on your LAN. Pretty sweet and very useful.
If you often connect to file shares at your home network, but haven’t found a good solution for accessing these shares when you’re away, you should consider taking a look at Hamachi. Hamachi is also good for remote desktop sessions, iTunes streaming, gaming, and securing your email, if your email servers lack TLS capabilities.