Remote into a Mac

[blueskull]

Apple gurus here,

Is there anyway to SMOOTHLY remote into a Mac (ignoring network issues -- we have 10GbE between servers and 1GbE between servers and clients) without paying extortion fee to remote desktop server software vendors?

My upper limit is $500, not a single dime more. And I need a commercial license.

Apple's built-in VNC sucks, both in terms of reliability (a suddenly dropped connection can cause VNC log-in manager to hang forever) and speed (at least 30fps).

RealVNC is nothing better in quality. Even used with their own client software.

TeamViewer is too expensive. $50/mo, and that's only a single session. I need 3 simultaneous connections ($200/mo).

Apple's management tools is also paid, though not expensive. But it only runs on a Mac -- I need a Windows client.

AnyDesk fits the budget, but I need a perpetual license with local (non-cloud) connectivity.

Chrome remote desktop is free, but all Google services are banned for use in China. Using a VPN can circumvent this, but it will also wrap my supposedly local remote desktop bandwidth.

Though I'm currently in US, and will not leave until later this year, or maybe even not until 2021 if things go well, but I'm planning for the future.

NuoRDS is priced at $447 for 4 users, one server. It's within my budget, and it's perpetual. But if I can find something better, I will try.

CoRD and a bunch of other RDP/VNC servers on Mac are all dead, none works with Mojave.

VM is another option. I can run macos in a VM inside macos. Parallels doesn't support this on their perpetual license software.

VMWare Fusion Pro does offer this, but with VNC, not RDP, which can be potentially slower. I've never tried this.

VirtualBox offers RDP, but for legally use it in a commercial setup, I have to buy a license, which is very expensive. $50/seat, 100 MOQ -- a whopping $5k price tag.

VBox does have a free, non-PUEL RDP extension called FreeRDP, but I've not tried it yet.

PS. I need the remote desktop to be able to address only one monitor. I have 3 monitors hooked up to my Mac, and I only want the clients to be exposed with one virtual display.

------------------------------------------- TL;DR ----------------------------------------------------

Which option do you recommend for remote accessing a Mac? VMWare+VNC? VBox+FreeRDP? Or NuoRDS?

Since I'm currently running Parallels, and hypervisors don't cope well with each other, I prefer not to try each options, hence the question asked.

Thanks in advance.

[amyk]

SSH...

[Halcyon]

Rather than stuffing around with software and licensing, why not look at a hardware solution such as an IP KVM? It would be completely transparent to your remote machine.

You should be able to pick up single-port models for your target price (although you'll probably need to look at second-hand options for anything other than VGA as they can be quite expensive).

Models like this are all over ebay: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Black-Box-KV1416A-R2-ServSwitch-CX-KVM-over-IP-Switch-Monitor-over-Internet/183427660978?hash=item2ab523fcb2:g:-d8AAOSwqsxbl7Ga

[Ampera]

If you can somehow get your program to run under X, you can always do X forwarding over SSH, but I imagine since you want to use XCode, that's not much of an option (although I hate that it has X in front of the name and is an OS/X thing).

IP KVMs are not a bad idea, but are always expensive, and if VNC/RDP implementations on OS/X don't work so well, then there may not be a whole lot else you can try. More insane ideas are doing things like having ffmpeg run a screen capture, compress it live, and send the video over the network, and then find some way to forward mouse and keyboard inputs. It basically is VNC, but taking all the complexity out of the picture. Similar thing could be doable with OBS I guess.

It also depends on how far away you want it, and if you're looking for a dumb terminal experience. Doing something like a long optical thunderbolt cable with an end point that allows you to hook up a monitor and USB stuff might be an option. You could also just try to run something like HDMI over twisted pair, and then just have capture cards (and then figure something out for keyboard/mouse input).

[HwAoRrDk]

I did exactly this kind of thing at one point in time. Using macOS's built-in VNC to remotely control a Mac for XCode development of iOS apps - although in my case, 'remote' was simply the other side of the office. Yes, it's a bit flaky, but it was workable. However, in the end I moved the Mac (a Mini) to my desk, plugged as a second input to my monitor and used Synergy to do keyboard and mouse input over the network.

[ddcc]

Have you tried NoMachine NX? I've only used it on Linux before, but it's much higher performance than VNC or X11 forwarding.

[tooki]

Odd that the integrated VNC doesn’t work for you — I use it over WiFi at home without any glitches. (It can even manage passable HD video playback, the audio delay notwithstanding.) But this is with a Mac on both ends. So my hunch is more an incompatibility with the Windows VNC server (i.e. client in normal terms) than with the Mac end of things. Nor do I think your network is suspect.

You won’t find an RDP server for Mac, since RDP is literally taking the Windows graphics commands and sending them across the network to be rendered locally. Since the Mac doesn’t use Windows graphics commands (GDI), they can’t be captured and sent. Hence VNC and other pixel-based solutions.

FYI, as far as I know, the Apple lab management tools also just use VNC under the hood, so it wouldn’t make any difference in performance for you.

A totally different solution is AirPlay: use a Windows AirPlay receiver program and have the Mac use that as an external display. (I haven’t done this in a while, but I used to use that approach to film iOS, before there was an official way to do screen recordings.)

[tooki]

Off the top of my head, no, sorry.

[tooki]

Other than the AirPlay approach, which I definitely think is worth a look.

[cowasaki]

I bought “Apple Remote” years ago but now the functionality is actually built in. If you are on another Mac you can click on it and share screen then use it remotely. If it isn’t running macOS then SSH

[tooki]

Other than the AirPlay approach, which I definitely think is worth a look.

But that adds a screen to current user session, right? I want a complete remote session that doesn't interfere with current user.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "interfere", but if you're asking whether an AirPlay display is a separate session or not: no, it's not. It behaves exactly like a physical display, in that it can extend the desktop or mirror another display. Like the built-in VNC, AirPlay displays persist into the login screen.

Though I did just think of something I overlooked yesterday: I don't think there's any facility in AirPlay for control (i.e. KB and mouse). :/

[cowasaki]

Under MacOS there isn’t an option I know of that would allow two people to log into Macao’s at the same time.  You can SSH into it whilst someone is in macOS but that’s about it.

[tooki]

Under MacOS there isn’t an option I know of that would allow two people to log into Macao’s at the same time.  You can SSH into it whilst someone is in macOS but that’s about it.

Actually it's supported this for many years now. (And it's supported concurrent local logins, called "Fast User Switching" for far longer still.)

Basically, if you try to log in to screen sharing using a user account other than the one currently in use, you get asked this:



So here, on the Mac Pro named "Atlas", I'm logged in locally as user "tooki", and then from the Macbook, I logged in through screen sharing using the user "test". The second option logs in a whole separate GUI session, and presents the login screen. The local screen remains untouched.

Apparently, for using this with non-Mac VNC terminals, you just have to twiddle the VNC settings: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/94666/how-to-use-mac-os-x-per-user-screen-sharing-from-a-windows-pc

[kripton2035]

https://news.dwservice.net/
https://anydesk.com/

[NiHaoMike]

How about a hardware encoded solution that works on any machine/OS that can output HDMI?
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/24/tinypilot-provides-kvm-over-ip-with-low-cost-and-even-lower-latency/
https://github.com/catid/kvm
https://pikvm.org/

[tooki]

https://news.dwservice.net/
https://anydesk.com/

I am so sorry that I revived this thread but I want to know if these sites are still working or not?

And what, pray tell, is stopping you from clicking those two links yourself to find out?!?

[Monkeh]

https://news.dwservice.net/
https://anydesk.com/

I am so sorry that I revived this thread but I want to know if these sites are still working or not?

And what, pray tell, is stopping you from clicking those two links yourself to find out?!?

Absolutely nothing, he's just a spammer trying to disguise himself as a mere idiot.