[MacTUG] Now that "Back to my Mac" is gone, how are you advising users to remotely connect to their Macs

[Glenn Anderson]

I guess I should explain a the functionality of “Back to my Mac” that I am looking to find a replacement for.

The primary function of “Back to my Mac” that was being used is that of the user being able to “find” their other Mac(s) by their OS X name and no matter where one was connected to the internet. This made it easy for someone at home to connect ( screen share or to their drives ) to the Mac here in their office, by simply clicking on their Mac’s name ( such as Glenn’s Office Mac).

Without this function, one can still share the screen, mount the drives, etc, but you have to know how to specifically specify the current network location of the Mac, which isn’t easy to know in most cases.

Things aren’t too bad if both Macs are on the same network , as the other Mac will show up when browsing the subnet. my Mac on my desk is names "Glenn’s MacBook Pro” and it will show up as that when browsing the subnet if I am on that same subnet as seen below:

[cid:FA93C76E-4868-408F-97D6-05A4B642A940 at uwaterloo.ca]

However, if I am not on the subnet then here is the path to my Mac
vnc://bb2-user-245-247.dynamic.uwaterloo.ca/
While the above will allow me to connect at this particular moment, as the name is dynamic it will change so by the time I get home it might be different.

The address need also changes if I change location or my connections, going to wireless means to find the same Mac one would need to go to vnc://10.34.103.86/  ( at this moment at least )

Note, registering the Mac (and MAC address ) and name doesn’t help in this regard, as a host my_mac_name.uwaterloo.ca<http://my_mac_name.uwaterloo.ca> return an invalid ip number. Doing a bb2-user-245-247.dynamic.uwaterloo.ca<http://bb2-user-245-247.dynamic.uwaterloo.ca> does return the correct IP

———————

I have found mention of getting this functionality via a commercial service that provides the functionality that Mac To My Mac had. But so far these seem to be overkill as they provide much more, they also come with a monthly fee.

I was hoping someone had found a free and easy solution to finding the Mac’s location or IP number remotely so one can then use screen sharing or VNC or whatever to connect to the Mac.


On Dec 2, 2019, at 10:46 AM, Dani Roloson <daroloso at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:daroloso at uwaterloo.ca>> wrote:

Considering ARD is like considering Photoshop for cropping and rotation.

In Terminal, you can "open vnc://127.0.0.1" or in Connect to Server "vnc://127.0.0.1".

Of course you'll need to do the VPN from off-campus and set things for specific users in Sharing > Remote Management.

I always have the discussion whether they just need their files not the GUI since their files should be stored on the file server.

________________________________
From: mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca> <mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:mactug-bounces at lists.uwaterloo.ca>> on behalf of Glenn Anderson <anderson at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:anderson at uwaterloo.ca>>
Sent: December 1, 2019 16:56
To: MacTUG ‎[mactug at mailman.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:mactug at mailman.uwaterloo.ca>]‎
Subject: [MacTUG] Now that "Back to my Mac" is gone, how are you advising users to remotely connect to their Macs

Hi,

With Apple’s “Back to my Mac” gone, I am wondering how people setup users so that they can remotely connect to their Macs on campus.

I know one option is Apple’s Remote Desktop but that cost $$$

Thanks,

Glenn



_______________________________________________
MacTUG mailing list
MacTUG at lists.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:MacTUG at lists.uwaterloo.ca>
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/mactug
_______________________________________________
MacTUG mailing list
MacTUG at lists.uwaterloo.ca<mailto:MacTUG at lists.uwaterloo.ca>
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/mactug

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/mactug/attachments/20191202/359110f2/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Screen Shot 2019-12-02 at 11.28.14 AM.png
Type: image/png
Size: 235517 bytes
Desc: Screen Shot 2019-12-02 at 11.28.14 AM.png
URL: <http://lists.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/mactug/attachments/20191202/359110f2/attachment-0001.png>