Mac Pro as a Server: Configuration

[jotade11]

So I'm looking into possibly buying a used Mac Pro as a web and media server for my family. Only problem is, I go to a boarding school and am away for several weeks at a time. I've been Googling around, without results, to see if there was anyway for my less-technically skilled family members to restart the Mac Pro, and just "let it do it's thing".

I'm thinking like the power goes out, comes back on, and all they have to do is press the "On" button, and it will start up, login on its own, and do it's server thing. Are there any solutions to an auto-login-on-boot, as I've never seen or heard of any, but assume there has to be some sort of solution. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[FrankHahn]

With Lion, a Mac Pro works just as you want if you do not setup any additional user account. Each time when I turn on my 2010 Mac Pro, it logs in automatically since I just have only one account for myself.

 

[Hellhammer]

Yeah, you can make it to auto-login and then add startup items so that all necessary apps will open. You could also configure VNC access or something similar for more control when away.

 

[VideoFreek]

Furthermore, in System Preferences-->Energy Saver you can set it to start up automatically after a power failure (though it wouldn't be a bad idea to set up your server with a UPS so that it can shut down gracefully in the event of a power failure).

By the way, since you don't seem sure how to setup auto-login, go to System Preferences-->Accounts, click on Login Options and then select which account you want to automatically login. Of course, setting up a server with automatic login is pretty bad from a security point of view. You could follow this tip to make things a bit more secure, but for sure you need to ensure that physical access to the machine is controlled.