The other evening, I had promised to do a little updating of a Mac for a person I call Mom. Things had supposedly been setup correctly, so it should have been no simple task. I connected via VPN, and added the machine’s IP address to ARD. It failed to populate in my list. Hmmm… I shared into another of her machines, and yes, the unit in question was up, awake, and all of the correct services were running. I tried to screen share from the unit I was connected to. No dice. Definitely throwing a wrench into my evening for sure. Time to think out of the box.
Okay, so I know the unit is there. And the correct services appear to be running. But I don’t have access. I need to make administrative changes to system configuration on a computer I cant get into. Quickly, I tried to login for file sharing. YES! I’m in. Okay, so that tells me I have admin access at that level. Good.
I pull up terminal on the computer I’m remote controlling. I tell terminal to SSH into the machine I need access to, by IP address. It works! I then throw a sudo command at it.
“sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/Kickstart -activate -configure -access -off -restart -agent -priva -all -allowAccessFor -AlUsers”
The terminal window asks me for a password. Since I’m SSH’d into the other computer, I give it that computer’s admin password. It accepts, and gives me a prompt. About a half second later, my ARD list updates, and the machine I . have access to, suddenly shows available. WOO-HOO!
I terminate my SSH session kill terminal, disconnect from the secondary machine, and remote into the unit I originally wanted access to. It loads up like a charm. I then begin the task of resetting a backup, and running updates, quietly celebrating my victory.