How to remotely control a second Mac via the 'net??

argeliusargelius
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I work in a business that is PC-only (gasp!). However, I'm the lone operator of two Macs -- one in my office, and a second used to power a continuously-running Keynote presentation on a Mac Mini.



Since the Mac Mini isn't readily accessible, I would like to gain access to it remotely, via the internets.



Can anyone recommend a simple program to allow me to remotely add files and launch keynote? That's basically all I need to do, so something basic (and cheap!) would be great.





Apologies for this basic question. I know this is possible, but my searches on VersionTracker aren't coming up with much (clearly I'm not searching with the correct terms...) Thanks!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    You can use a VNC server. I found the 3rd party servers to be quite slow but in 10.3 or 10.4, Apple built in their remote desktop software so you go into system prefs > sharing and turn on Apple Remote Desktop. You set up connection passwords and things here.



    You do this on the machine you connect to. On the other machine, you run a VNC client. You have to pay for the Apple remote desktop software but there are 3rd party clients that are fast enough. I found Chicken of the VNC (yeah, I know it sounds weird) to be the best.



    You then connect this using the appropriate port details and passwords. To do it over the internet, you'd need to open the appropriate ports on your routers and you'd need to forward the ports on the receiving end to the Mac Mini. If it's on a dynamic network, you'd be better putting the machine you are connecting to on a static IP by assigning it an IP outside the pool of dynamic IPs the router has.



    Remote desktops in my experience is very slow with OS X, over the internet it's excruciatingly slow. To speed it up, you can lower the resolution of the machine you are connecting to and you can use compression.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Argelius View Post


    ...



    Can anyone recommend a simple program to allow me to remotely add files and launch keynote? That's basically all I need to do, so something basic (and cheap!) would be great.



    ...



    Timbuktu Pro and Symantec PC Anywhere 12.0 will allow two-way access and control over the 'Net or LAN between Macs and Wintel. However, it is not clear that this is what you want.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    pyr3pyr3 Posts: 946member
    You can also use an SFTP client to upload the files. Someone could probably whip you up a shell script to start Keynote. That shell script can then be run remotely over ssh. If your need really are that simple, then the solution can be just as simple.



    SFTP = enable SSH on the Mac Mini, and download CyberDuck as your SFTP client.
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