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How to monitor/review my Mac's activities?

Zmmyt

Zmmyt

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2005
1,769
905
Hi,

I was wondering if there is an application which allows me to see what my Mac does when I'm not at home.

e.g. After work I want to see if someone took my Mac for their personal use while I was away. And I would like to see what that person did with it.



cheers
 
Eidorian said:
Probably a mix of the "last" command and Console logs.

How many users are on this machine?
Click to expand...

It's just me, but I believe others are using it without my knowledge. I could just log out when I leave home, but I would like to surprise the others with hard evidence, in case I'm right.

I don't have anything to hide, but they could at least ask, before using my Mac.

How do I get into the logs?
 
Tymmz said:
It's just me, but I believe others are using it without my knowledge. I could just log out when I leave home, but I would like to surprise the others with hard evidence, in case I'm right.

I don't have anything to hide, but they could at least ask, before using my Mac.
Click to expand...
If you have a static IP you can always ssh in and see if someone is using your machine.
 
Eidorian said:
If you have a static IP you can always ssh in and see if someone is using your machine.
Click to expand...

If they use the computer it's probably only for a short time, they are probably very snoopy and just want to lurk around. (hopefully I used the words "snoopy" and "lurk" properly)

So is there maybe a way to review my Mac's logs from today?
 
Eidorian said:
Running the "last" command in Terminal reads /var/logs/wtmp which will show who has logged in and reboots.
Click to expand...

That's the problem, I guess. I was/am always logged in and it never got rebooted. Why should they. Once they open the lid the computer is running.
 
Tymmz said:
That's the problem, I guess. I was/am always logged in and it never got rebooted. Why should they. Once they open the lid the computer is running.
Click to expand...
Isn't there an application that snaps a quick snapshot via iSight every time a Mac is opened?

If you want to see what happened earlier today, you might try opening a Terminal session and typing:
grep "wake from sleep" /var/log/system.log

On my MacBook Pro, this shows everytime that it was "awakened" today.
 
aristobrat said:
Isn't there an application that snaps a quick snapshot via iSight every time a Mac is opened?

If you want to see what happened earlier today, you might try opening a Terminal session and typing:
grep "wake from sleep" /var/log/system.log

On my MacBook Pro, this shows everytime that it was "awakened" today.
Click to expand...

Sorry, no iSight available.

How do I grep (?) "wake from sleep"? EDIT: never mind!
 
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