Hamachi is indeed a great tool. VPN has proved to be the most difficult service to provide to my customers, not due to the underlying theory involved, but the stubborn nature of certain residential gateways that will remain unamed.

Hamachi is a godsend. It’s simple, and a timesaver.

As a bonus, there’s even a linux client!!!

Yay!!!!

dear lur

i have been using hamachi for over 2 years but have recently (for about 6 months now) noticed that after about 5 minutes the connection between 2 computers on hamachi ceases (even though the green light in still ON)
for example you can no longer PING other computers on the hamachi network or connect to them remotely
The only way to reconnect is by powering OFF and ON again.

any suggestions?

michel

That’s a toughie. I have noticed that when connectivity is lost that Hamachi has a hard time re-syncing. I often have to cycle Hamachi’s power button to get it to reconnect.

Are you connecting over wi-fi? If so, wi-fi can be very spotty, in my experience. Especially in areas where there are a lot of interfering signals (apartment complexes, downtown areas, etc.). Your connection may be dropping out just long enough to get Hamachi off its game and then the wi-fi comes back but Hamachi can’t. Connecting in a wired fashion should help in this instance.

Give that a try. If not, check out Hamachi’s forums for an answer or post your question there.

-Mike

Here is another interesting problem I’m experiencing with Hamachi:
When my friends and I are playing over an Hamachi network, I can ping all of my friends, but they can’t ping me. The only way I can get this to work is by disabling my firewall (Windows Firewall, Vista) for the Hamachi connection. As far as I know, none of my friends has to do this.

My friends say I don’t need to worry about security issues. However, Windows has the annoying habit of constantly reminding me that my firewall is partially disabled.

Does anybody have any idea what could be the problem?

Well, I am no TCP/IP expert, but here are a few things to think about in this scenario.

First, you seem to be running Vista. Are your friends also running Vista? I do not know for certain, but it is possible that the Vista firewall is blocking ping attempts (or simply not responding). Since they can ping you when you disable the firewall, it seems obvious that this is the cuplrit.

As for dropping your firewall over Hamachi, well, you have to be careful. Connecting to others over Hamachi is the same as allowing them to plug into your home LAN. As such, they have access to your machine carte blanche.

If your friends are like mine, I wouldn’t trust them. They may have infections that could spread to your system. As well, they may be able to browse your shared resources… print to your printer… so I would be wary. I love my friends, but I don’t want them commenting on all of my pictures and music.

The full firewall may not be totally necessary, but I would at the very minimum disable filesharing over the Hamachi connection. And also make sure that access to shared resources is locked down to a username and password. Vista is much better about that (read: difficult to work with) than XP.

-Mike

well, here is a strange one..
myself and a friend use hamachi to play some games.. everything was going fine then one night it turned out he could no longer ping me.. with my firewall on OR off.. i can ping him fine but not vice versa..
we are both running windows xp home..

Yes, I have noticed that too. Suddenly, several weeks ago, my friends and I are suddenly not able to connect to each other via Hamachi to play Company of Heroes.

I wonder if the game manufacturers are including code to disallow Hamachi so that players must use their online services.

i installed hamachi and have used it for gamming fine however i am now up at college and i wanted to use it to access the shared files on my home computer. I have not been abe to achive this thus far. I am able to ping them fine but i just cnt figure out how to access the shared files any advice would be muchly appreciated. Thanks!

Remember, Hamachi is like a network connection, with all of the properties thereof.

When installing Hamachi, it asks you if you want to disable the more dangerous ports. If you said yes, then it disabled file-sharing. You need to go into the network properties for Hamachi and enable file-sharing.

As well, check your firewall settings for the Hamachi connection. File-sharing may be blocked there too.

I know you’re not at your home computer, but unfortunately these things have to be done locally. However, if you enabled Remote Desktop on your home computer, you may be able to connect through that and make the changes.

Good luck!

well, I was searching via internet about WAN then I found some information about HAMACHI. now, can I make WAN connection by HAMACHI.
If I have certain application and that application is working via LAN can I make it WAN.
other question what is the different between VPN and WAN.

I’m not sure I fully understand your question.

Hamachi allows multiple computers separated across a WAN (Wide Area Network: a network which spans a large region, such as a city) to be able to connect as though they were on the same LAN (Local Area Network). It employs special IP addresses called Bogons, which are not routable across the internet. This affords a modicum of security. Traffic is encrypted as well.

A WAN is, as I said, a large network… such as the World Wide Web. Nodes on a WAN will frequently be gateways that monitor and deny traffic into the LAN behind them. This keeps people from, say, accessing your shared folders from a remote location. A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, allows a secure tunnel through the gateway from the outside so that users in remote locales can access the protected nodes behind it. VPNs come in a multitude of flavors and Hamachi is a type of VPN (although that may be debatable).

I hope this answers your question.

-Mike

when my friend view my ping it always timed out

what should i do?

Excellent question, one which I cannot answer without better understanding what you’ve done and tried. Have you tried going to the Hamachi website, checking their FAQs and such?

-Mike

here,s a problem
my friend r not able to connect to me through hamaci while playing counter strike but i am able to connect to all of them could u plaes help me with dis n the latency dat i get while playing the game is very high and its troublin me while playin the game pleas help me with this problem

I am not sure there is anything I can do to help this. Latency can be caused by many many factors. And connection problems can be caused not only by hardware and net conditions, but also by the game code itself. For instance, when I play Company of Heroes with my friends, frequently they can connect, or I can connect to either of them, but all three of us cannot connect at the same time. It’s odd.

When it comes to gaming, Hamachi lately seems to be more of a hindrance than a help. Turn it off and see if you can connect normally. If you are still having latency issues, it’s something to take up with your respective ISPs.

-Mike

could u pls tell me how to connect normaly to my frnds without turning on hamachi

I assume you mean for Counter Strike? If so, there are ways to connect to servers and host servers. I don’t play Counter Strike so I don’t know offhand how to do this. All computer games have some method or other for creating and/or joining a server.

Sorry, but I’m going to give you a big fat RTFM.

-Mike

ok!!!…..exactly how many prsons can connect to a server using hamachi……..will there be any disturbane or difficulty if too many guies connect to one server(i am not askin for counter strike in particular but for all PC games dat support playing online)how do u normaly connect to ur friends for any game without using hamachi??

exactly how shoud d IPs of my friend coincide with mine
for example
5.184.454.100
5.184.454.101
is the above d correct form when me and my friends are sharing a network
or can it vary such as
5.342.253.53
5.234.324.345

dude……wat r d different types of netwoks dat is shown in d system tab in hamach configurations
mine and my friends are different
for instance mine is:native hamachi protocol
and my friend’s is:SSL
dose this have any thing to do for us not able to connect to each other if so how to sole it

You need to RTFM, brudda. I am not a hamachi expert.

I got a huge problem with browsing other computers shared files when me and my brother use hamachi.. i can ping him but when i try to browse him it comes an error that says i dont have permission to do that , contact administrator and so on.. but i created that server but i cant find out what the reason is..
Anyone else that experienced this problem ?

The clue is in the error message. The user you are logged in as on computer A does not have sufficient rights to the shared resources on computer B. I hit this a lot because I use the same username across my LAN, but then I password protect some PCs and not others. When you log in across a LAN (or across Hamachi, same thing), if the username on A exists on B, then it will try to log you on with that username and credentials. You otherwise have to explicitly set the username and password (Tools/Map Network Drive… on XP) used to access computer B.

The next thing to do is make sure you have sufficient rights on computer B. Make sure the shared settings are correct. Right-click on the shared folder and go to Sharing and Security. Then click the Permissions button. Here is where you want to be careful. Everyone means everyone, so unless you have secured the connection, you may wish to only grant rights explicitly to the users that need it. This is the first line of defense that Windows uses in determining rights.

Next, you muse make sure that the file permissions are correct. Go to the Security tab of the properties panel for the shared resource and make sure that there aren’t any oddball settings; make sure that your username that’s on computer A has the correct rights. And it may be in the files themselves, not just the shared resource.

I have this problem all the time. I FTP stuff to my Mac, which uses a different username than my PCs. So the permissions get set on any new incoming file. So then, I can’t touch that file across my LAN (although, I can FTP download the files easily). So periodically, I just reset the permissions of the files on my Mac with a CHMOD -R 777 *

Easy peasy!

I hope this helped.

-Mike

One of my clients currently uses VNC, UltraVNC and Hamachi. All work well together. However, once I establish an Hamachi connection I can not login to computers that are locked (CRTL-ALT-DEL). Management wants these workstations locked but it prevents remote support unless someone is there to unlock them. Is there a setting I am missing? Thanks, Ed

Look into running Hamachi as a service. That might help.  If done right, you may not even need to be logged in.
-Mike

Sorry Mike, my fault. I forgot to mention that this client uses the “free” version which will not start as a service. –Ed

Well, then you may be SOL.

FWIW, I am surprised that Hamachi doesn’t work with the workstations locked. Now, you are saying they’re just locked (Windows Key + L), right? Not logged of.

Locking a workstation with Win+L shouldn’t stop anything from running. I start long jobs and then lock my workstation and head off on a break all the time and it never stops anything from running. But I confess, I only use Hamachi at home and I don’t lock my computers there; only at the office.

Have you scoured the Hamachi forums? Sometimes they have some answers.

And if the client springs for VNC and UltraVNC (not familiar with those… are they free?), then perhaps they might wish to purchase the full version of Hamachi.

Sometimes that’s the only avenue out of a dilemma: either pony up the dough or else live with the reduced functionality.

Good luck… please let me know if and how you resolve this. I would be curious to know the answer.

-Mike

Problem solved. It appears to be a Windows Server security issue. THe problem is resolved with using Hamachi’s big brother LogMeIn. Thanks, Ed

Hamachi is a great program, but I’m running into a little problem when I choose to browse an 5.xx.xx.xxx ip adress on my vpn it asks me for a user name and password, what user name and password is it referring to? It will give me the error “windows in unable to log you on” when I try.

Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by “browse”. If you mean looking at shared folders, then you need to put in a username and password that’s registered on the server where the shared resources are.

Generally, I have one username and the same password for all my machines at homes. Windows (I assume you’re on Windows) checks your local username and password on the remote machine, and if those credentials work, then it logs you in using them.

However, if those credentials don’t exist on that machine (or if, for instance, the password is different there than on the local box) then you are asked for a username and password. If only the password is different, then I have had difficulties logging in with that username; I usually use the administrator user on the remote box in that case.

But you can always go to My Computer and do a “Map Network Drive…” which lets you specify a user and password explicitly. You can also use the NET USE command if you’re into DOS commands.

-Mike

Hi Michael,

Great article. I have successfully hooked up a mac to a pc using hamachi. The problem I have is that the pc has local mapped network connection to a network hard drive which I want to be able to access wherever I am on my mac. When I mount the pc’s hamachi address (5.xx.xxx.xxx), I am only able to view limited folders. I tried to place a shortcut to the mapped drive within one of these folders but my mac doesn’t recognize it. Any ideas about accomplishing this task?

Thanks

I’m not 100% sure I understand what your situation is, so let me describe what I think it is, as well as how I would solve it, and then you can let me know if I’ve helped or totally missed the mark.

So you have a Mac and a Windows PC, both running Hamachi (excellent by you! Getting Hamachi running on a Mac isn’t easy). You also have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which is a file server on your local LAN. When you take, say, your Mac (I’m assuming that’s the portable machine) on the road, you can connect via Hamachi to your PC, but not to the NAS.

Well, you can think of your Mac, while attached to your LAN, as the center of a figure-eight. The top loop is your LAN and the bottom loop is the Hamachi network. Only those machines that can run Hamachi are on the bottom loop. So when you’re on the road, the connection to the top loop, where the NAS is attached, is not connected. Only those machines on the bottom loop are reachable.

Now, what you can do is use VNC to do a remote desktop from the Mac to the PC and access the files on the NAS there, copy them to somewhere on the PC that the Mac can connect to as network storage, and then transfer them to the Mac. SSH or Telnet would also work, but you’ll need to be familiar with command line stuff (which I assume you are, since you got Hamachi running on the Mac).

But as I read, I am not sure I understood you properly. You could also mean that there are shared resources on the PC that you can get at via the LAN, but not via Hamachi when you’re remote. By default, Hamachi locks down “dangerous” services through the Hamachi connection. One of these is file sharing. Go into the network properties on the PC for the Hamachi connection and make sure everything you want is checked.

Good luck. Let me know how it works out.

-Mike

Michael,
I have everything set up for Hamachi. I can map to my laptop to see files with no problems. When I map to my server it asks for user and password. I have all the permissions set for the shared folders but it still won’t let me log in. I have tried:
servername\username
username@domain.com
username
5.5.5.5\username
actual usernames and address changed to protect the innocent)
I know permissions are set properly because I can log in through other avenues. Any suggestions.

That’s a tough one. Whenever that happens to me, it’s usually because I have the same username on both computers, but each has a different password (especially if the remote computer’s user has NO password). I’ve never been able to resolve this either.

What I do when this happens is try the administrator account for the remote box.

Sorry I can’t be more help. I sympathize, because I’ve had this frustration before myself. I just haven’t figured out how to resolve it yet, other than to make sure all like usernames on my computers have the same password as well.

Good luck. If you resolve it, let me know how.

-Mike

Ok i have a tricky one, i cant figure it out.
Me and my friend connected to a network. It was a network a buddy of my friend made, so we were 3 people in the same network. Im gonna call us Me, Friend and Buddy.
Now the weird thing is that everyone can ping each other except i cant ping my friend. My friend can in fact ping me.
And then we try to play a game of Dawn Of War. If i host a game only buddy can join it but my friend cant find it. If my friend hosts the exact opposite happens. If Buddy hosts we can all join.

The weirdest thing i have ever seen =S
The problem has to be on my computer because we can all ping each other but I can ping my Friend.

If it makes any difference i use Vista and the others uses xp, if it helps.
Ya well, if you have the answer plz mail me or something =D

That is a weird one. Try a trace route and see what comes up. The packets have to be getting dropped somewhere.

Otherwise, I have no idea. Hamachi can be quirky that way. Let me know if you figure it out, or if you get more info.

-Mike

Hamachi is really useful when used to for lan gaming. But does anyone know how to use hamachi to play counter strike? the room i created cant be seen by my friends using hamachi. it seems like hamachi doesn’t support counter strike for lan gaming.