Thanks to James Dore and Howaret Ings, I have set up my Mac to wake when the modem detects a ring. I then create a tunnel over SSH and VNC over that and tada! I'm controlling my Mac from anywhere without it having to stay awake.
However...
The Mac is set to ask for a password when it wakes. If it doesn't get given a password in a short time (ten seconds?) it goes back to sleep.
So I have to set up my ssh tunnel command and my VNC client. Then I call up, and as soon as I hear a ring, I have to hit return on the ssh command, wait, enter the password, flick to my VNC client, hit enter, wait, then enter the password on the VNCed OSX password dialog.
It can be quite tight on the timing. Great for security, I guess, but a bit of a bore if I have to do it a few times to get a connection. It's a bit less frantic if I call up, get the SSH tunnel going, wait until the dialog times out (and the machine sleeps again), call back up, make sure the ssh session is responding and initiate the VNC session. But it's still far from easy (it took me four attempts to connect just now, for example, so I've temporarily turned off password protection).
In the long term, I want the password protection on wake/screensaver left on. How can I extend my grace period for password entry to (say) sixty seconds, or even better to turn off the immediate auto-sleep and have it stay awake until the standard energy saver settings kick in? Is there something I can hack to give me longer before it gives up waiting for the password? Something I can enter as soon as I get a connected ssh session to prevent it falling back asleep?
I can't make head nor tail of com.apple.loginwindow.plist in /Library/Preferences...
-z-
"zoara" me17@redacted.invalid wrote in message news:1hn4kq0.7a7ncdk9rxdpN%me17@redacted.invalid
I had/have exactly the same problem. I gave up on the wake on ring technique exactly because I could never get the whole SSH/VNC enter your password thing going before the machine timed out.
Watching this thread with great interest...
zoara me17@redacted.invalid wrote:
I have set up my Mac to wake when the modem detects a ring.
However...
The Mac is set to ask for a password when it wakes. If it doesn't get given a password in a short time (ten seconds?) it goes back to sleep.
Yes, that's really annoying! I've spent hours googling and fiddling with pmset to no avail. Never though of your solution of VNCing in just in time though because all I wanted was ssh access.
There is one tedious workaround: it will only ask for a password and go back to sleep if you put it to sleep without logging out first. It's very handy to just hit the power button and walk away, but it does have the annoying side effect you've found.
If you can face logging out manually and then putting it to sleep, it should stay awake when you wake it remotely. I was waking my iMac with wol packets (though I don't think I found a way to get my router to forward them) but I imagine it will be the same using the modem.
I'd love to hear if you do find a solution without having to log out first.
Peter