How do you wake up your headless Mac Mini?

[EatMoreCarrots]

For all you folks that use a Mac Mini controlled via your iphone through remote or via your laptop through screen share, how do you wake it up once it goes into stanby? Luckily I have a wireless mighty mouse with mine that wakes up the Mac Mini when i click it but I find it ridiculous that i have get out my mouse to wake it up every time I wasn't to play music using my laptop or my iphone. Am I missing something?

 

Or, do you set it so that it never ever goes into standby? And if that is the case, what about your external drive? I have a Drobo connected to mine that I would prefer not stay on all day every day...

 

Thanks!

 

[darascal]

I keep sleep mode off, as most people seem to do. As I understand it, the Mini consumes little power, so it's an ok way to go. Alternately, I believe you can push the Mini's power button to wake it up.

 

Not sure about the hard drive ... I haven't fiddled with the energy-saving settings on my external Seagate (where my music lib is) - so when I first start playing off iTunes, it does take 5 seconds or so for the HD to spin-up, but it's no biggie, not annoying to me.

 

Russell

 

[jon]

Not at machine at present but if you go to energy settings there is a box that says something like allow Ethernet to wake computer. Checking this allows iPod/phone to wake mac.

 

Just thought though that my mac is connected to airport via Ethernet and the mini's wifi card is switched off. This probably won't work if you're just using the computer's wifi.

 

[Audio_ELF]

IIRC one of the features of Snow Leopard was allowing a Mac to wake via wireless. Not sure if this includes when used with iTunes remote. Also think it needs Apple wireless networking hardware.

 

Eloise

 

[roccoriley]

It's easy to just push the power button to wake them up!

 

There is a system parameter that activates this capability.

 

[cfmsp]

 

I"ve been wondering how to wake up the Mac Mini remotely - so that Screen Sharing will operate - WITHOUT walking over the computer to press the power button myself.

 

 

 

clay

 

 

 

 

[Bob Stern]

Waking a computer connected wirelessly to the LAN requires the computer to have a newer wireless card that remains active when the rest of the computer is asleep. I think only the very latest Macbook & Macbook Pro's have that, not the Mini.

 

However, you can transmit the "Wake on LAN" packet from a wirelessly connected computer such as an iPod Touch. Only the computer you desire to waken must be connected via hardwire ethernet.

 

[diw]

Its a little frustrating using the Mini as a headless server. The switch on thing is one...I just leave it permanently on. Occasionally it will balk at the Screen sharing process and refuse to recognise the password . More problematically, with an external hard drive for the music library connected, this should be unmounted before switch off and this is impossible without a screen connected in some way. Accidental power outages leave you wondering whether the drive will actually mount again ( and sometimes it doesnt ) What this means is keeping a screen, keyboard and mouse handy for those moments ...I am seriously considering swapping out the Mini for a Macbook...the Mini is really just a Macbook without the screen and keyboard in a different casing. I would be really interested in finding out how other people have dealt with these issues...the Mini is a great device, I bought it to rip 1000 CDs as it was cheaper than any of the proprietary services even if the ripping process killed it. It didnt and it has given stalwart but not perfect service since.

 

[jon]

I've never had an issue with mounting / unmounting external drives and never needed to do this manually. My current drive self powers down on sleep or shut down and always monts automatically.

 

Screen sharing is generally fine. I have an occasional problem when it puts the wrong user name in the box but this is easily changed. Never had issues with the password though. Have you ran the first aid in keychain?

 

[Bob Stern]

...before shutting down the Mini, provided you use the Shut Down command rather than just pulling the power plug.

 

Even without a display, you can shut it down gracefully by briefly pressing the power button to bring up the Shut Down dialog, then pressing the Return key to choose the Shut Down option.

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

Thanks for the good advice Bob, both in this thread and at AA.

 

Not the least of which is spurring the realization that with Mac Mini (instead of previous Macbook Pro) as music server, I actually have a reason to use ethernet again. I hadn't connected ethernet to a computer in years!

 

Well, not exactly true - I had used my Apple Cube's ethernet connection to give it reliable internet service when I set it up as a music server (even though it had NO audio out capabilities). Firewire to the rescue for audio, and Ethernet to the rescue for unreliable wireless cards of ten years ago.

 

And yes, a 450Mhz single processor computer can play music.

 

cheers,

clay