Sunday, September 03, 2006

Hamachi, VNC and the Nokia 770

Over the last couple of months I have been having a "general tussle" improving my understanding on how best to create a personal private secure network before I begin increasing the "Freedom & Access" to my home PC and my personal interest AV media; wherever I happen to be in the World at any time.

In my quest to obtain both the knowledge, software applications and methods to achieve my overall aim, this is my current workable(ish) solution :-


1. Secure Virtual Private Network SVPN

Hamachi is a great application to create a Secure Virtual Private Network VPN for my personal PC's and "Internet-Net workable Devices" such as my Nokia 770 Internet tablet. Thanks to Internet Tablet Talk Forum I quickly found Hamachi (Maemo Port) that runs on the Nokia 770 all be it currently at command line level, running in an Xterm window.

2. Virtual Network Computing VNC

TightVNC (Version 1.2.9) is the VNC server application I have currently chosen to run on my XP PC. There are a number of other free options available such as RealVNC, UltraVNC, I am not sure which provides the best features for my needs.

VNC Viewer (Maemo Port) Version 0.3 is the VNC Viewer application that runs on the Nokia 770 enabling me to log into and control my XP PC remotely. Here is an Internet Tablet Talk forum thread which takes us through more recent developments of VNC Viewer for the Nokia 770 (OS 2006) and the various options on its use etc.

3. Set-up and use.

After reading up a little I was not about to let TightVNC sever run merrily on off onto the World Wide Web and the outside world, opening up ports on my router which would say "Here I am, come and hack me" without first understanding how I could set up Hamachi to create a secure personal Network.

Installation of Hamachi and VNC was relatively easy on the PC and the Nokia 770 device

First I installed Hamachi on my XP PC and my Nokia 770 and then made sure that they could see each other across my very first Virtual Private Network . Then I installed TightVNC on my PC and established that with Hamachi there was no need to open any ports on my router. Then it was simply a matter of starting the VNC Viewer on the Nokia 770 connecting to my Hamachi IP and hey presto; I was controlling my PC remotely using via a secure Hamachi VPN network session.

4) Notes:
  • "Hamachi & TightVNC Win32 Server" programs need to be set as exceptions through the XP Firewall.
  • With Hamachi running there is no need to open any ports for the VNC server on the router, you simply use the Hamachi provided IP address to connect VNC Viewer to the TightVNC server running on the PC
If anyone is sufficiently interested I can provide more information.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey MikeL,

I have been able to do what you have done with my Nokia770, using realVNC and Hamachi. Thanks for your notes on helping me learn Xterm to activate Hamachi. This works fine perfect in house, and I have been able to connect out of network. I have noticed that if you are in a free wifi spot that requires that you gain access with a user/password web interface, that the whole hamachi/vnc setup doesn't work.

Anonymous said...

could you provide me some more information how to connect my PC to my nokia 770. No idea how to do it.

my e-mail is hjsantana@hotmail.com

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hello, I came across your blog while researching the Nokia 770. I'm wanting to use the 770 as a thin client to control my XP machine. It looks a though you're doing just that. Have you experienced any screen hesitation or delay issues? Can you use the stylus to type when using an application like Outlook remotely? Thanks in advance for your help.

MikeL said...

Hello to all who commented with questions etc.

I wish to re-vist this topic in 2007 as I also had some visibility problems connecting external to my network from different Wi-Fi locations.

The VNC Viewer for the Nokia 770 has been recently updated and I was hoping someone would create a GUI for Hamachi to make Hamachi easier to use also.

Keep an eye on my Blog ;-)

Anonymous said...

MikeL,
I´m new using N770 and I don't understand how to download it into my n770.
Could you give a help?
Thanks a lot,
Esteban