A better Guide to Hamachi on the Pogo Plug

A few weeks ago I blogged about how to setup the PoGo Plug as an embedded Linux server, in my previous guide I hacked together an old version of LogMeIn Hamachi to get the server accessible through a VPN. The hacked together version of Hamachi was unstable to say the least and I have been searching for a better installation method ever since. Recently, I have managed to install the latest version of Hamachi, which is much more stable than the version I was using previously. In this guide I will explain how to install Hamachi version 2.1.0.18, the latest version to date.

Use a PKGBUILD

The easiest way to install software packages in Arch Linux is to use a PKGBUILD. A PKGBUILD is a series of instructions which automatically downloads a package, extracts it, and executes the installation. Some serious Internet searching revealed the the following package, which was designed to install Hamachi 2.1.0.17. Unfortunately this package was not written to be compatible with Arm systems so I had to make some modifications. You can download my modified PKGBUILD here link.

After you have downloaded my PKGBUILD you must move it to your root directory (/) and you must then cd to that directory. Run the PKGBUILD with the following command

makepkg –skipinteg

You also have to run the installer without integrity checks, just add the skipinteg argument as I have shown above.

Next, you will need to run the install.sh script located in the src directory.

cd /src/logmein-hamachi-2.1.0.18-armel
./install.sh

If it throws some errors don't worrry, I ignored them and mine is still running fine.

After the script finishes, you must initialize Hamachi by browsing to the logmein directory created during the installation and running the daemon:

cd /src/logmein-hamachi-2.1.0.18-armel
./hamachid

Now you can login to the Hamachi servers by typing "hamachi login" and join a network by typing "hamachi join (network name)"

It is important to note that when you reboot your arch system you must start Hamachi using the same "hamachid" script that you just ran. You may want to create a start-up script that automatically calls "hamachid" at boot so you don't have to worry about manually starting the program. You can add Hamachi to your start-up programs by adding the full path to the "hamachid" script in your /etc/rc.local file

It works!

I have been using this installation of Hamachi on my PoGo Plug for about a month now with no problems. I have rebooted my PoGo Plug numerous times and each time Hamachi has initialized without fail. Using the instructions I have outlined in this blog post you should have a stable, production-ready, version of Hamachi on your PoGo Plug.