HamachiVPN

= Hamachi VPN for Palm Pre =

This document assumes you're familiar with the Hamachi VPN, specifically the linux version. It is geared towards a person wanting to "get it working" on the Pre. If you're not familiar, there are endless Googlable web pages that describe running Hamachi on desktop linux systems you can use for reference.

Become root:

Make the filesystem writable:

Download the hamachi binary to your pre via wget:


 * Note: It is recommended that you use the nokia build, because it included the install script. Whereas the direct hamachi link would require that make be installed.

Unpack the archive:

Hamachi depends on libcrypto.so.0.9.7. The Palm Pre has libcrypto.so.0.9.8 installed. I made a symlink, and it worked. So...

Edit the "install" script using your favorite editor (like vi) to change the installation locations. Also fix line 7 or you'll get an error.

I changed it to:

Then follow the instructions in the README under Quick Start, but basically:

Hint
Adding your Pre to your Windows hamachiVPN.

If you use Hamachi to connect to web services running on your machines at home or elsewhere, you might make your life easier by adding some entries to the /etc/hosts file. Then you can access your servers by name instead of having to use the Hamachi 5.x.x.x IP addresses.

A simple sample entry in /etc/hosts which would allow you to access your server "beaker" at 5.1.2.3 would be: (Add your servers below the "castle" line.)

When done, make the filesystem read-only again:

Ping Test
When you've got hamachi up, you can try pinging one of your servers.

Sleep/Wake and Battery Impact
On first testing:
 * When the device went to sleep, the VPN went down.
 * When the device woke up, the VPN came back up and was pingable again.

This morning, while at my workstation, and with the Pre idle in my pocket, I noticed my Pre was available/pingable on Hamachi. I am not totally sure of what the long-term battery impact might be of running Hamachi on the Pre. I'm not yet sure if it keeps the device "awake" all the time, which clearly would drain the battery. I have push GMail IMAP going, so I assume there is some kind of connection either being periodically established or constantly maintained. But I don't know enough about the networking aspects to determine at this time whether running Hamachi all the time will negatively impact the battery. Feel free to message me if you learn anything.

Further Testing:
 * With Hamachi running I would achieve 12 hours of battery life on my pre
 * Without Hamachi running after 12 hours I am sitting at 60% battery life

So to conclude running Hamachi all the time significantly decreases battery life in my situation. I personally would not recommend running Hamachi all the the time.

Upstart script
This script will start Hamachi up after a reboot.

Place the following script in /etc/event.d/hamachi