Controlling another Mac?

[snooziums]

I was wondering if there was any way to control one Macintosh from another? And something cheeper than Apple's $600 solution.

What I need it for is that I have one Macintosh that is loaded with hard drives, DVD burner, and other optical drives in it. However, the processor is a bit slow and runs Jaguar 10.2.8 a bit slow and will not run Panther.

I want to be able to access all of those drives from another newer Mac.

I thought about just network "sharing" the drives, however I do not think that can be done with removable optical drives.

I would like the setup to be so that the Mac with all of the drives can be set up once, and then be accessed WITHOUT its own monitor, in otherwards, a drive host.

So, does anyone know of any programs for controlling another Mac?

[jimjiminyjim]

Additional suggestions requested: What about when I want to do something on my work computer, and I'm at home, or vice versa. As long as they are both on and connected to the internet, is there some way I can access files on one from the other?

[FattyMembrane]

accessing files from the interned can be done easily by enabling ssh or ftp in your system preferences. if you use a vnc client and server (like "chicken of the vnc") you can control another mac (or any computer) over a network or the internet.

[jsw]

Check out Chicken of the VNC (http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/) (client) and VNC (http://sourceforge.net/projects/osxvnc) (server) as one way to access and control devices. It's free, and there's more than one OS X VNC app out there.

[jsw]

accessing files from the interned can be done easily by enabling ssh or ftp in your system preferences.

ssh is secure, ftp isn't. just something to keep in mind.

and if you have dynamic IP addressing and need a consistent way to get to your system, check out DynDNS (http://www.dyndns.org/). You can get a free domain name, as well as scripts to run on your Mac to ensure that your IP is always up to date - i.e., you could set up "bobsmac@homeip.net", and then always access your Mac via that address.

[jimjiminyjim]

Thanks for the info jsw, fattymembrane. One quick question - does the VNC server you linked to continue to run after quitting the application?

[jsw]

Thanks for the info jsw, fattymembrane. One quick question - does the VNC server you linked to continue to run after quitting the application?

If you quit osxVNC on the server, then, no, it doesn't continue to run on the server (i.e., if the app isn't shown as running in your toolbar, it doesn't appear in Activity Monitor, and Chicken of the VNC doesn't see it, so I assume it isn't running).

Quitting Chicken of the VNC on the client won't quit osxVNC on the server.

[FattyMembrane]

i haven't tried this, so i can't attest to it's validity or invalidity, but in theory, you should be able to use a vnc client to close the vnc server, thus closing the connection and turning off the vnc server.

[jsw]

i haven't tried this, so i can't attest to it's validity or invalidity, but in theory, you should be able to use a vnc client to close the vnc server, thus closing the connection and turning off the vnc server.

Good point. Yes, there's no reason that won't work.

Edit: Just verified: it works.

[jimjiminyjim]

Thanks for the info all.

[whooleytoo]

Thanks for the info jsw, fattymembrane. One quick question - does the VNC server you linked to continue to run after quitting the application?

I usually leave remote login turned on, so if the VNC server is quit, I can just ssh in and relaunch it, then connect again via VNC.

AFAIK, VNC send the session password as cleartext, so I obviously don't like leaving the server running when I'm not connected. Hence the solution above is quite handy for me.