booting Mac OS X headless?

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gizzmonicgizzmonic
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hey, does anyone know how to get Mac OS X 10.2 or later to boot headless? And by headless I mean, with no video card in the machine at all.



I have remote desktop on this server I'm running, and I'd really like to take out the video card and use it somewhere else...thanks for your help!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    It might be easier to go out a buy a cheap Rage 128 Pro, and just not attach a display to it. Rage's can be had cheap on eBay for under $20.
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  • Reply 2 of 15
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    The Xserve can do it, so it must be possible...
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  • Reply 3 of 15
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    i don't think theres anything you would have to do, aside from taking the card out. i'm pretty sure it won't mind if theres no vid card.
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  • Reply 4 of 15
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    It does mind if I try and boot it without a video card...that won't work.



    I guess I'll head over to Apple.com and see what their suggestions are.
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  • Reply 5 of 15
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by wmf

    The Xserve can do it, so it must be possible...



    It has a graphics card.
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  • Reply 6 of 15
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JLL

    It has a graphics card.



    Did anyone claim othervise?
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  • Reply 7 of 15
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    Did anyone claim othervise?



    Try and reread the first post.
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  • Reply 8 of 15
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    the new xserve "cluster node"

    does not have a graphics card.
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  • Reply 9 of 15
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JLL

    Try and reread the first post.



    It doesn´t say anything about the Xserve. And the comment about it just said it can boot headless...
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  • Reply 10 of 15
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    It doesn´t say anything about the Xserve. And the comment about it just said it can boot headless...



    En gang til for Prins Knud



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gizzmonic

    Hey, does anyone know how to get Mac OS X 10.2 or later to boot headless? And by headless I mean, with no video card in the machine at all.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by wmf

    The Xserve can do it, so it must be possible....



    Quote:

    Originally posted by JLL

    It has a graphics card.



    Get it?
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  • Reply 11 of 15
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    My understanding is that you can take the graphics card out of an Xserve and it will boot headless. So you should be able to do the same on a Power Mac. Maybe you need to run OS X Server.



    I haven't done this myself so I could be wrong; don't flame me.
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  • Reply 12 of 15
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by wmf

    My understanding is that you can take the graphics card out of an Xserve and it will boot headless. So you should be able to do the same on a Power Mac. Maybe you need to run OS X Server.



    I haven't done this myself so I could be wrong; don't flame me.



    It won't boot into Aqua, which the poster needs.
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  • Reply 13 of 15
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    I don't necessarily need it to boot into Aqua, although that would be nice (using remote desktop).



    However, the machine I'm talking about is just going to be an internet router/firewall and I can manipulate it via the command line if need be.



    The problem is, when I remove the video card, it boots into OS 9, as far as I can tell (without being able to look into the machine). I could remove the OS 9 system folder, but something tells me that won't fix my problem.



    Is anyone else using an old Mac as a server? I have been using it with an old Rage128 card, but I took it out to drive another display on my main machine. Also, the machine wouldn't boot up properly even with a video card, unless a monitor was plugged in and turned on...any ideas?



    Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
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  • Reply 14 of 15
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    If you want it as a router / firewall, why not just use Darwin instead?
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  • Reply 15 of 15
    jobesjobes Posts: 106member
    i'm using an old beige g3 266Mhz desktop as a file server for my network. I have removed the floppy and zips from their bays, and using a Sonnet ATA 100 card i now have 4 HDs (200Gb) in this beige pizza box. believe it or now the air running from the fan outlet at the back is as cool as the air temp in my room!



    i have a 10/100baseT card in it as well, and it runs off the 2Mb of VRAM. It runs aqua, not especially well but it works enough to set stuff up. I normally control it via Remote Desktop from my laptop, and the refresh rate is a little slow, but it is sufficient for monitoring processes or changing settings. As long as you are on the same subnet it works fine.



    I run the machine 'headless' over my network, but i keep the old school apple > vga video adaptor plugged in all the time, so the machine boots up fine. i think this is cos the machine believes it is plugged into a monitor. This has been true in 9.x and 10.x for me ... so a workaround *IF* you have a spare/cheap video card would be to use a VGA adaptor or cable plugged in. you might still see old OEM PCI rage128 cards on eBay (when i replaced mine in my B&W tower with a radeon, i started using a dual head setup ... so you can't have mine ... sorry )Certainly my machine works because the video out is connected straight to the VRAM on the mobo, rather than checking to see if a video card is present.



    you don't say what kind of machine you are running, but i guess its one of the first couple of revs of g4s. you won't be able to do it for free, but you should be able to pick up a cheap gfx card which will solve your predicament. if you are running a commercial server setup for your business, its a cheap expense.



    good luck
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