Why Power Nap is now my Favorite ML Feature!

[indefinitedrums]

Holy expletive Batman, you can ssh into a Power Nap enabled macbook while it's asleep! Does this excite anyone else?

Normally I just open my macbook before I leave work, so I can remote in... and if I forget I ask my roommate to do it... but today(unknown to me) he'd already left. So after getting to work, I figured he'd already opened it, and I pulled up putty and logged in fine... I then tried to access screensharing and got a black screen, so I asked if he'd done it, and he told me he had not. This is great imo... sure, opening your mac and seeing all your mail there is great and all, but being able to access your mac over ssh while closed/asleep is truly amazing to me. Note: Screensharing does NOT work this way, it shows a black screen(guessing bc the display is off) and prob wouldnt be a great idea even if it did work, as the fans do not/will not kick on and the PC is in a low power state(although it supposedly turns off if it reaches a peak temp). sFTP does work great, as does any command I could give it over ssh. Anyone else think this is great?

 

[infobleep]

Although I don't tend to ssh into my MacBook, I do think it's a useful feature. Nice to know that unix is still being supported to this level by Apple.

 

[indefinitedrums]

Agreed, and yeah I know most may not ssh in, but having sftp access is fantastic... Thanks for responding

 

[bp1000]

If this forum gave out geek points I would give you 10

 

[exon]

Thanks for the tip. It seems that the computer will periodically sleep/wake during powernap. I found it worked for me when first plugged in, then it wouldn't respond to pings for a few minutes, then it did again when I think a TimeMachine backup started. Do you have to keep trying to catch it when it's listening or is there a trick I'm missing?

 

[RabidMacFan]

Does it work with back to my Mac and iCloud?

 

[dyn]

This also shows why Powernap should be disabled at all times (or at least remote services like ssh). Closing your Mac means it will always be available...to anyone! It means that hackers can try to attack the machine day and night by trying to login via ssh. There are some tools that will slow these kind of attacks down where it no longer is interesting to attack the machine. It is advisable to install such tools in this case.

 

[Eahdawn]

I wouldn't be SSHing into my machine, but I'm buying mt first Macbook in the next week, and am wondering if PowerNap is enough of a convienience that you'd get the Air (i5@1.8Ghz/8GB/256SSD) over the Pro(i7@2.9/8GB/128SSD)?

 

[z06gal]

If this forum gave out geek points I would give you 10

lol

 

[IllmasterMath]

Is this something a future version of Parallels could leverage? I bought Parallels Mobile a while ago because I thought it would be cool, but soon realized that unless I left my MacBook on all the time it didn't do me any good. It would be nice to have access to a desktop environment without having to carry a computer around all the time.

 

[indefinitedrums]

If this forum gave out geek points I would give you 10

^ this made my entire week, lmfao.

"This also shows why Powernap should be disabled at all times (or at least remote services like ssh). Closing your Mac means it will always be available...to anyone! It means that hackers can try to attack the machine day and night by trying to login via ssh. There are some tools that will slow these kind of attacks down where it no longer is interesting to attack the machine. It is advisable to install such tools in this case. "

Decent argument, but 1) ssh is not possible when unplugged, and anyone with "wake for network access" enabled is already at risk of any service open being compromised due to Bonjour Sleep Proxy unless mac(book) is closed 2) anyone ssh'ing in should have the smarts to ensure security measures are taken(ranging from firewalls to mac filtering, etc) and 3) I have never had issues with people trying to hack ssh, when a 128 bit key would have 3.4*10^38(actually 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456) possible permutations over brute force, seems a waste of time... open SQL port? Yeah, sure I'll **** with them... but if only I see p22 light up, it's no use. Confirmed after viewing log, no one(as far as I can tell) has ever attempted ssh login to my (static in fact)IP/hostname, ever.

I wouldn't be SSHing into my machine, but I'm buying mt first Macbook in the next week, and am wondering if PowerNap is enough of a convienience that you'd get the Air (i5@1.8Ghz/8GB/256SSD) over the Pro(i7@2.9/8GB/128SSD)?

Hmmm, hard to say, it's very nice opening it up and seeing mail has already arrived etc, but JUST for that, IMO no... the air is lighter, if you are mobile a lot, this is great.... honestly, the rMBP is just amazing, if you can fork over the extra $ for a ssd on an i7 pro, go for gold and get a rmbp, also, as we all know(or rather, expect), the 13" rMBP will prob come out sept at a $1699ish price point, and THAT would be my suggestion, honestly.

Is this something a future version of Parallels could leverage? I bought Parallels Mobile a while ago because I thought it would be cool, but soon realized that unless I left my MacBook on all the time it didn't do me any good. It would be nice to have access to a desktop environment without having to carry a computer around all the time.

idk if they(parallels) will themselves utilize this, but a mac can wake via magic packet/ssh, and this is how I wake then control my VMs(ssh, HAVE NOT TRIED WHILE POWER NAPPING), just use iSSH or if jailbroken; mobile terminal on iOS. I will try to do this over powernap and report back for you, if you'd like.

 

[unphased]

Hey I am interested in this, but my rMBP appears to cut all ties with the network once I close the cover. Does this require you leaving the cover open?

 

[ideal.dreams]

Hey I am interested in this, but my rMBP appears to cut all ties with the network once I close the cover. Does this require you leaving the cover open?

It does not require the lid to be open. So long as the computer is sleeping, Power Nap should be working regardless if the lid is opened or closed. Do you have Power Nap enabled under System Preferences > Energy Saver?

 

[unphased]

Yeah, but honestly this doesn't appear to work at all. I'm not gonna lose any of *my* sleep over it as sshing to it works fine with the cover open. Though it would be nice if there was a way to get it to run cronjobs at night. With the cover closed. Consistently.