Reader G. Murray sometimes needs to restart his Mac when it’s no longer within arm’s reach—or maybe with strolling legs’ reach. He’s wondering what alternatives are available with modern Macs. His Mac is placed on a network created with the aid of a Time Machine, so it has a privately assigned IP address using NAT (Network Address Translation).
Two sorts of options are observed right here: for a while, the Mac remains to tick away but isn’t doing what you need, so you want to restart it if you can connect remotely to it, or the Mac is unreachable and ostensibly crashed or experiencing other troubles, and you need to power cycle it.
Remotely connect with an operating Mac.
Screen sharing and remote terminal access can help you manage a Mac remotely; however, accomplishing that Mac over the Internet is frequently a fly in the ointment.
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Meanwhile, MacOS consists of Back to My Mac, which pairs with iCloud to allow remote access to a Mac through the Screen Sharing app. It works normally compared to any other Mac signed into the equal iCloud account. Apple offers no guest admission to different Macs—though you may install an account on another Mac quickly—nor does it have an iOS app.
Instead of Back to My Mac and the Screen Sharing app, you may use the general screen-sharing protocol VNC. (To be more confusing, Apple’s Screen Sharing app is based on VNC but is longer and equal.) VNC can work over Back to My Mac, but it doesn’t usually because it’s not a supported characteristic. Third-celebration macOS and iOS apps assist you in accessing any VNC-capable device.
Enable display screen sharing within the Sharing Machine desire pane, and click the Computer Settings buttons to show on VNC. Warning! Always set a robust password for VNC because it’s clean for attackers to experiment with VNC and find yours if it’s accessible from the Internet.
Back to My Mac fails with “double NAT” conditions, which I regrettably have and aren’t entirely uncommon. A double NAT generally happens when an ISP gives a modem that still acts as a router and has functions you couldn’t replicate or flip off. If you connect AirPort Extreme with DHCP and NAT is enabled to a LAN port on the ISP’s modem, you’re developing a NAT inside a NAT. All outbound connections paintings are high quality, but inbound ones can be messy. (In my case, the furnished model has a few difficult-to-understand networking capabilities used by CenturyLink’s fiber-optic community.)
Instead of counting on macOS, you could turn to 1/3-celebration away to get entry to a software program, even though my favorites have dwindled and left active improvement, even as ones that used to have unfastened or cheap flavors have gone business and expensive.
TeamViewer remains the exception; nonetheless, it is continuously developed and free for private, non-business use. It can punch through a double NAT, and it’s my favored device, as though it works on practically every platform, with macOS and iOS. The business enterprise charges a pretty hefty price if you’re using it for business purposes, beginning at $850 for a perpetual license for remotely having access to up to 3 gadgets. For business customers without massive budgets, I advise LogMeIn, which is $250 a year for two devices.
Chris Breen’s 2012 directions on using SSH to reboot or shut down a Mac through a Terminal consultation remain correct, so I refer you there. But developing a far-flung Terminal consultation through SSH, a relaxed protocol that’s trustworthy over the Internet, calls for putting in place port mapping on a router or Wi-Fi base station the usage of DHCP reservation (so your Mac has the same private IP cope with all of the time) and NAT port forwarding (so an Internet-available network cubbyhole maps to the Mac you want it to).
Unfortunately, Apple no longer offers a detailed manual for AirPort configuration as it did for years. I’m reluctant to toot my very own horn. Still, if you acted to install this form of far-flung access for SSH or other offerings, you’ll discover all the demands in my ebook, Take Control of Your Apple Wi-Fi Network.
Remotely power cycle your Mac.
My buddies and I previously owned a surge protector power strip from Sophisticated Circuits (the PowerKey line) that had a dial-up modem built in. You may want to name right into a telephone line, and it’d help you use a hint-tone smartphone to control power cycling character retailers, among other functions. In the times of jogging Mac and different servers that wanted “remote hands,” the several PowerKey models I owned stored various past due time automobile trips to places of work.
But we’ve got the Internet now, and you should buy the equal sort of object that works over IP instead of a voice line. Unfortunately, those gadgets generally tend to feed a lot. However, they’re designed to be strong and join through ethernet to increase reliability. The $seventy-six ezOutlet unmarried-outlet faraway strength switch commonly has fantastic critiques and can be controlled through an iOS or Android app.
Another alternative might be to set up HomeKit with faraway access and use a HomeKit-well-matched smart outlet. You can locate some items, including the roughly $40 iHome SmartPlug, reviewed at TechHive. But the remote gets entry to calls for a 3rd or 4th era Apple TV. If you don’t own an Apple TV, that bumps up the overall fee.
Ask Mac 911
We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get requested maxmostently, along with solutions and links to columns: study our awesome FAQ to loosee yoseeur query is protected. If no longer, we’re continually looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.Com, such as screen captures as suitable. Mac 911 can’t respond to—nor put up a solution to—every query, and we don’t offer direct troubleshooting advice.
