Using Hamachi on Gentoo

Alex Brandt 2010-09-27 16:11 Comments

Introduction

Hamachi is a lightweight personal VPN connector that is a breeze to setup but there can be some pain if you don't know what to expect. As always Gentoo provides us with an ebuild that simplifies the installation process but getting up and running is still a little confusing.

Installation and Setup

User Specific Configurations

The obvious first step is emerge -av hamachi (this is only available to ~ARCH right now so add this to /etc/portage/package.keywords if desired). The following are the typical instructions to install hamachi on Gentoo using portage:

echo "net-misc/hamachi ~${ARCH}" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords # Optional
emerge -av hamachi
rc-update add tuncfg default

After these steps have been taken, you can run hamachi as any user on the system for ad-hoc VPN creation.

Server-Wide Configuration

If you prefer to do a system wide VPN configuration with hamachi, a different approach must be taken:

echo "net-misc/hamachi ~${ARCH}" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords # Optional
emerge -av hamachi
rc-update add hamachi default

Now all configuration should be placed inside /etc/hamachi for the VPN tunnels to be configured at startup or when the hamachi service starts.

Kernel Configuration

For hamachi to work correctly you do need the tun parameter in your kernel or loaded as a module. This parameter is located in Device Drivers → Network device support → Universal TUN/TAP device driver support.

Using Hamachi

Now that hamachi is on the system we need to start using it. The server-wide installation doesn't require this (but I'm sure you can use this method to create a configuration usable by the server-wide instance) but the user specific usage does.

Starting hamachi is as simple as the following:

hamachi-init
hamachi start
hamachi login
hamachi create NETWORK [ PASSWORD ]
hamachi join NETWORK [ PASSWORD ]
hamachi go-online NETWORK

That's it. You're now connected to a private network named NETWORK. You can view who else is connected to your network with hamachi list and hamachi get-nicks.

Conclusion

Setting up a VPN can be daunting (see the OpenVPN configuration documentation) or it can be a breeze with hamachi. Need a quick VPN for LAN gaming or a VPN for performing maintenance over The Internet on a device behind a firewall? Hamachi may be the quick solution you're looking for.