Before we had the Apple’s OS X Tiger there was no way to do screen sharing across the Internet.  My grandfather, who lives in Michigan, had just bought a new  Mac.  I wasn’t going to fly out there but he desperately needed some help showing him how to use his Mac.  I, therefore, needed a way to control his computer remotely.  In most households there is a router with at least one, if not multiple computers, sharing the Internet connection.  This is, essentially, a network setup.  We can share printers, share files between computers, amongst other things. With my grandfather, what I really needed was to be on his network; this way I could easily connect to his computer with his IP address. Now you’re going to ask, why don’t you just get his IP address and connect over the Internet without being on his network?  Good question!  Remember, his IP address is not the IP address of his computer, it’s the IP address of his router.  The truth is it can be done, though we would need to configure his NAT router, punching some holes to allow certain traffic to flow through the router to his MAC.  This type of configuration is complex and besides, there is no way my grandfather is going to be able to do this.  What we need here is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) and Hamachi is just the solution, plus it’s free!

A VPN is a network that uses the public infrastructure, such as the Internet to provide users with secure access to their organization’s network.  Very often you will find corporate VPN’s. What that means is an employee who is out on the road or working from home and needs access to the corporate network, is able to gain access via the corporate VPN and thus, work off-site.  Since the VPN’s operate over the Internet, an insecure medium, there is a real need for bullet proof security using extremely robust encryption protocols. 

I downloaded and installed HamachiX for the MAC.  I was able to easily set up a network then I gave the network a name and a password.  Now that I have a VPN setup on my end,  I had my grandfather install HamachiX on his MAC.   He joined the network I created by using the name I gave it and the password.  I was then able to see him logged in.  I then had him configure his MAC to run the remote desktop service and also have his firewall accept the VNC client connection.  VNC is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with a computer desktop.  I fired it up on my MAC.  I make the connection using the IP address that Hamachi gave my grandfather’s computer and the port the service was running on; voila! His screen appears in the window.  I am now able to control his computer.  Hamachi is “zero configuration”, meaning I did not have to re-configure my grandfather’s router.  It was like his computer was in my house on my network.  I was able to telnet to his computer and I could even set up to print to his printer in Michigan if I wanted to. 

 If you’re in a hotel away from home using the hotel’s insecure wireless, Hamachi would be a great solution to securely connect to your home computer and access files, or even browse the net off your home computer.  It’s really an intelligent solution for the small business or home user who needs to access computers across the net in a secure mode.