jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sun Jan 30 15:53:36 CST 2011
I use Hamachi a lot. I am trying to set up Hamachi VPNs specific to client groups, IOW a VPN for Lenoir Prison Ministry, a VPN for Forgiven Ministry, a group for FSN Hope, a group for C2DbInternal etc. What I did not really understand is that there are actually three types of networks. I am going to cut and paste the definitions from Hamachi's page just so that you can see what they have to say. http://help.logmein.com/SelfServiceSearchResults?kw=hub+and+spoke&product=lmihamachi2&sr=0 http://help.logmein.com/SelfServiceKnowledgeRenderer?type=Documentation&id=kA130000000Lu1YCAS&search=1&kw=hub%20and%20spoke * Gateway virtual networking: Provide remote users with secure access to your private network/LAN, including the resources on it, from a centralized LogMeIn Hamachi² gateway, without modifying firewalls or network routers. * Hub-and-spoke virtual networking: Provide remote users with secure access to specific resources on your network, from any location, without modifying firewalls or network routers. * Mesh networking: Connect all of your network clients to each other. Quickly and easily create a simple, virtual, mesh network that allows remote machines to directly connect to each other, thereby giving users basic network access to all the network resources they need. So, I wanted a private network for each client. I wanted a hub and spoke for each client because both of the other types (mesh and gateway) allow all computers to see each other. In most cases, these clients are a group of people who really don't want each other to see their shares etc. If you create a network from a client (as I did) instead of from the Hamachi Web page, then you automatically create a mesh network. Once you create a network from a client, I have never found a way to "connect" or subscribe that network into your online network management page. Bad news. So think carefully about the future and consider doing all of your network management from the web page. Essentially you create an Hamachi account which you can log in to. Once you do that you can create networks from that page, then send emails to people with invitations to join your networks. You get to "approve" the subscriptions. Because I had created all of my networks from the client on my laptop, they were all "mesh" networks, and everyone could see everyone. Even worse the visibility extended out of the network to other networks. Even worse than that, I started getting echos between the networks. IOW, because mu computer belonged to each of the mesg networks I would ping computers and get many different ping echos. If you are ever going to do a single network then fine (maybe) build it from one of the Hamachi clients. However if you ever anticipate doing multiple networks as I am doing, do yourself a favor and start from the Web page and always create your networks from there. -- John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com