How to remote access you Mac

 

Links:

Timbuktu http://www.netopia.com/software/products/tb2/mac/

Apple Remote Desktop http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/

Chicken of the VNC http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/chickenofthevnc.html

Redstone Software Vine Server (formally OSXVNC) http://www.redstonesoftware.com/products/vine/server/vineosx/index.html

 

• Why Remote Access
  • You need to fix Moms computer, you are a sys admin in a company and need to do support.

 

• Traditional ways of access (GEORGE You can go nuts here you know much more than me)
  • They use TELNET or SSH which were both command lines way of accessing your mac.TELENT is pretty unsecured and SSH is fine if you are a command line person.
    • Telnet is a REAL BAD idea. no encryption. easy to sniff credentials. and we all love public wireless.
  • You turn on SSH by going to System, Sharing section and then turning on Remote Login which is what apple essentially calls SSH
    • I use iTerm as my SSH rather than command line. You do have to enter the command line syntax in iTerm but it is saved.
    • You can actually mount SSH directories as a drive. MacFuse from Google. But it won't use keys.
    • http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html
    • http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
  • There is also FTP access if you want to just do file transfer but it's not secure. SSH also enables Secure FTP which is. Thsis is fine to just transfer files remotely.
    • Cyberduck etc will do secure FTP.
    • http://cyberduck.ch/

 

So what we really want to do until Leopard comes out and makes this easy is connect to an Apple computer remotely with your mouse and keyboard.

 

• We are going to cover 3 ways of doing this

 

Timbuktu http://www.netopia.com/software/products/tb2/mac/

• It does remote control of a mac for example for trouble shooting etc. So you can be on a mac and control a Windows machine and you can control a mac from a windows machine.
• You can chat during a session etc.
• Another neat thing that it does is that it gets the IP address so you don't have to try and get someone who has no knowledge about IP to get your their IP address. Now it does this in a interesting way with Timbuktu you can give them an email address (like your Mom or friend) and you can connect remotely using an email address once you register with them. That's pretty cool So they are keeping a server that maps IP addresses with registered email addresses.

 

• They also are able to get to the computer even if they are behind a router or firewall, which really tends to make people nervous. They use SKYPE in order to make the connection and in essence tunnel using skype. So as long as party A and B have Skype it will work. It is slower but it does work. That is also very cool. I did not try this but it seems logical. What do you think about that George?

 

• It also has Bonjour which if you are on the same network it will work.
• Timbucktu is license on a per machine basis so you will have to have a license per computer. The price is $179. fUS for 2 licenses one for local one for remote.

 

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD)

 

• Apple remote desktop is a high end remote desktop software I have it for about a year and it is absolutely great. It's a universal binary of course.

 

• It's only for the Mac but remote control is the tip of the iceberg , it is a true remote management package the type that Sys admin. would love.

 

• One thing you can do for example is install software on remote machines from your machine. It has a task server that you can tell it, to automatically download the newest version of Skype to the three machines in your house. So your machine gets it and you can automatically install that package in all the remote machines in your house or even remotely. As soon as it sees it on line it will install it using multi-casting a TCPIP protocol that lets you copy much faster and completely install it. The task server waits until one of your mac plugs into the network then install it.

 

• You can tell remote machines to run applications, you can run remote about the remote machines, you can search a remote mac with spotlight with rocks. You can run reports on remote hardware, software, screen capture remote machines, run usage reports for the kids, it just goes on and on,. We have 3 macs at home and it makes it so easy.

 

• You can also= observe multiple computers at once. I can look the other 2 computers at one time. So I can see what is going on, This works on 2 as well as on 10 and it just puts these small screens on your screen and it's just so cool to see. Again think about being a sys admin in an apple show. It does all this without hurting performance.

 

• The ARD system sharing preferences has an access privileges section where you can set what can be done or not done. For example the remote user can tell it you can let someone observe my machine but not control it, etc, You can show when being observed so that the remote person knows when they are being observed. So the privileges let you login and see exactly what is on the remote machine right now. So you are seeing everything and if controlling, you are controlling everything as if you were that user logged in to that machine.

 

• On the computer status screen when you run the remote admin it shows the application that the remote machine is currently running, it shows the IP address, it shows current user, etc. If you had 10 or 20 users you can quickly see what they are doing, if they are idle or not etc.

 

• There is also a feature called curtain. If you curtain to a remote machine, their screen goes black, so the administrator can do something on the machine and the real user would not be able to see it. Again a good admin to try with your kid who thinks you are not a super geek.

 

• You can also copy a clipboard between machines and that is cool.

 

• As the admin you can also send an on-screen message to the remote user, and the remote user can initiate a chat session with the administrator even without IM. You can lock and unlock a remote screen, you can put a remote mac to sleep and even wake it up across the network. This is only available on a wired Ethernet network (same LAN) it does not work across the internet.

 

• Now in order to do this you will have to set some Enegery Settings. In the energy saver system preferences you have to check wake for system administrator access on the remote machine.

 

• Apple also has great support fo ARD. I had an issue with my ARD for a while and when I called Apple care i was handed over to tier 2 enterprise group. These guys are real gurus and you will need your serial number just to talk to them, but once you do they will get your remote issue resolved. In my case I could not access one machine and it turned out to be a left over program I had in my start up folder which was also a VNC server and was conflicting with it. Great support for this product.

 

• One last thing although ARD is meant to control MAC, it can also use VNC (virtual network computing) which is an open source protocol that lets you control remolty all kinds of machines. So if you were running a VNC server on a PC you can use ARD to just login and do the basic VNC stuff.

 

• ARD is $299 for a 10 user license and an unlimited license is $499. You can also get educational pricing which is 1/2 that amount . A real deal. I love it and highly recommend it.

 

Using Regular VNC to get to your Mac (the cheap way to remote access) IT's FREE

 

• If you are on a MAC and want to connect to another amc you can get a VNC client called Chicken of the VNC Chicken of the VNC http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/chickenofthevnc.html and if you enable remote desktop access click on access privilages then click on allow VNC access, The you can use Chicken of the VNC to connect to that mac remotely. There are other open source VNC server for the MAC.

 

• However there may be some intanses where something like Chicken of the VNC won't do because perhaps you want to log in to another user account. Lets say you wanted to log into a remote mac that was already being used by someone. But you wanted to also login to that mac not to observe or control them but to run your own profile and have two users at one. Well you can't do this with a traditional VNC program like Chicken but you can do this if you use a third party VNC server your machine.

 

• Redstone Software has a solution called Vine (it use to bebe OSXVNC) http://www.redstonesoftware.com/products/vine/server/vineosx/index.html IT's FREE

 

• When you rund Vine then a VNC server that can be run in session mode and you can set the VNC server in your user account and you can tell it to keep running even when you do user switching. This makes it possible to keep that VNC server running even when multiple accounts are running. You do have to run it on a different port , instead of running that VNC server on port 5900 which is the standard just set it to a different port like 5920 or something. S o you can use Chicken of the VNC again here as a client and red-stone as the VNC server.

 

• VNC however is not encrypted. You can tunnel it through SSH.
  • You have to setup and expose SSH to the Internet
  • You do port forwarding through SSH to reach VNC on the target machine.
  • Found this screencast on Remote Access of Mac VNC through SSH from a PC googled for "vnc ssh mac"
    • http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/

 

Conclusions

 

• Using a Mac you have lots of choices in order to be able to remote control your Mac or even your Mom's Mac. Timbuktu, ARD, Chicken of the VNC or running your own VNC server provide ways to be able to work more efficiently even if you are away from your keyboard.

 

• It's always important to note the security implications of doing this however right George?

So have fun remote controlling your Mac , but be safe.