Mirroring a Misson Control Space or other Virtual Desktop

[M@xim]

I'm looking for a way to mirror a virtual desktop (whether it be Missin Control or alternative).

I want to be able to have a MBP (Yosemite) connected to an external monitor. I want 1 desktop on the external and another on the MBP. I want to be able to look at the desktop that is on the external monitor from the MBP so I can see what is on the external monitor but still have my own separate desktop to work privately. The external monitor is used to display things and occasionally I need to navigate to it to see what my client sees or dismiss something. The idea of switching desktops without showing the client my private view would be perfect. I don't think OSX supports this, but I figure there might be an application or another method of achieving the same solution.

Thanks for your help!

 

[0d085d]

It certainly isn't possible to achieve exactly what you're thinking of out of the box.

There's only one remotely workable possibility that I can think of. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to assume you're fairly handy with a Mac, but just ask if I need to elaborate anywhere.

1. First you'll need to create a second user account on your computer. It doesn't matter what you call it or anything.

2. Go to System Preferences -> Sharing and make sure that both Screen Sharing and Remote Login are checked. For both, choose "Allow access for all users"

3. Now open the Terminal application and type:

ssh -NL 9003:localhost:5900 localhost

Press enter and it will ask for your password. Type it in - note that nothing will show up as you type. Just hit enter when you've finished typing. The cursor will move to the next line but nothing else should appear.

4. Open a new tab in Terminal (cmd+t) and type:

ssh -NL 9004:localhost:5900 localhost

(note the different number after -NL). As above, hit enter, type your password, hit enter again.

5. Now click on your Desktop to go back to Finder. Press cmd+k and you'll be presented with a Connect to server... dialog box. Type in localhost:9003 and hit enter. Screen Sharing will open and should hopefully ask you to authenticate. Select Registered user and then give it the login details for the second user account that you created earlier. On the next dialog, choose Log in as yourself.

6. Screen Sharing should pop up. You may need to go to View -> Show Toolbar to show the toolbar. Use the control toggle switch to switch to observe mode, then use the displays switch to select Display 1 (or whichever is the smaller display). Drag this window to your external display and click the green maximise button to go full screen.

7. Now, press cmd+k again and connect to localhost:9004. Do the same login procedure again, but this time when it loads, keep it in control mode and keep it on your built in display full screen.

What you should at this point is a space on your built in display that's "logged in" to a different user account and a space on your external display that "mirrors" it. The Terminal commands are forwarding ports 9003 and 9004 to port 5900 (the screen sharing port) on your machine. That means you can screen share your own computer twice without anything complaining.