Remote Management

Keep-It-Up Classic

Remote Management

KIU has a tiny "embedded" webserver that allows you to remotely manage your Mac.

You can enable this webserver in the preferences dialog. You will be asked to enter a password, if you had not done so already. You can also choose the port number on which the webserver runs (>1023). This way you can prevent any conflict with a real webserver or other network software.

To remotely manage your Mac: from any computer, point a browser to your Mac using the portnumber you chose.

                                 e.g.: http://mymac.mydomain.com:2666
                                                                or
                                         http://143.14.78.22:2666

(If you don't know the URL for your Mac, consult the KIU FAQ )

You must enter a username (always "kiu" ) and the password you chose.

You can now perform several tasks:

• General System Info:

get some statistics such as the remote system's uptime, free harddisk space, and the system load (a system load > 120 indicates a busy system).

• Shutdown & Restart:

remotely shutdown or restart your Mac. These commands come in "Clean" and "Forced" versions, both having specific advantages and disadvantages:

Clean Restart/Shutdown:	Forced Restart/shutdown
First all applications are terminated, then the computer is restarted/shut down. Unfortunately, if an application puts up a dialog when asked to quit, it can block the restart process indefinitely. To avoid this situation, you should install Okey Dokey which automatically dismisses dialogs after a certain time period (see KIU FAQ ). If you use Okey Dokey, you must set the Okey Dokey activation time to less than 60 seconds. Sadly, Okey Dokey doesn't work for all types of dialog.	First an attempt is made to terminate all applications, but after the given time period KIU will proceed with the restart/shutdown, even if one or more applications have not yet terminated. You should set this time period high enough to give all applications ample time to quit (recommended: 120-240 seconds). If you use Okey Dokey, set the Okey Dokey activation time sufficiently low compared to the forced restart period (e.g. 30 seconds, never higher than 60 seconds)
Advantages: this is a safe way to restart/shutdown without any data loss	Advantages: always works, even if some application doesn't quit. This ensures your Mac always restarts and becomes available again. If availability of your server is very important, select this method.
Disadvantages: the restart/shutdown may get blocked, probably leaving your server in an undesirable state.	Disadvantages: some unsaved data may be lost from the application which did not quit.

The restart/shutdown happens in 5 phases:

• phase 0: KIU notifies anybody sitting at the computer that a restart is in progress.
• phase 1: KIU asks all applications to quit and waits 10 seconds
• phase 2: (optional, only if some apps did not quit yet). Every minute, KIU will ask each remaining application to quit. As a side effect, your Mac may beep every minute. Fase 2 lasts until all applications have quit (Clean Restart) or for the given time period (Forced Restart).
• phase 3: KIU terminates the finder and also writes the names of any remaining applications to the KIU log file
• phase 4: KIU umounts all disks and restarts or shuts down the computer.

Notice that once that phase 1 has begun, the restart/shutdown can only be stopped by quitting KIU. The webserver remains active during these phases and other commands can be given, e.g. if you notice that a Clean Restart/Shutdown got blocked, you can still give a Forced Restart/Shutdown command. When a restart/shutdown is in progress, the current phase of the restart/shutdown is shown at the bottom of the webpage. This is updated each time you go to another page.

The "Quit all apps" command will only try to quit all open applications except for KIU and the finder.

• Processes:

a process is another word for a program running on your Mac. You can view all running processes, and kill (=quit) or restart (=quit+launch again) them. The process table shows all processes, even the ones that are normally not visible.

Note 1: it is possible that a program puts up a dialog when you try to kill or restart it. This prevents the completion of your remote command. To avoid this situation, use Okey Dokey (see KIU FAQ).
Note 2: if you kill a process, and this process is on the list of "monitored applications", KIU will relaunch the application.

• Launch Applications:

you can remotely launch applications or run an AppleScript. To make an application available for remote launch, you must first make an alias to the applescript/application and copy it to the "KIU Weblaunch Items " folder in the preferences folder. Applescripts must be saved as "application", option "never show startup screen".

The possibility to remotely run an Applescript allows you to perform any remote management task that you can write an Applescript for.

• View Logfiles:

you can remotely view logfiles generated by KIU or any other application. To make a logfile available for remote viewing, you must first make an alias to the logfile and copy it to the "KIU WebLog Items" folder in the preferences folder. You can also choose which portion of the logfile should be shown (last 4KB-256KB).
The file must be a plain textfile (i.e. type 'TEXT'). If the logfile is a textfile but not of type "TEXT", it will not show up in the list. You can fix this my making the alias end in ".log".