Killing AppleVNCServer with an applescript

Question

Killing AppleVNCServer with an applescript

Hi, I have a mac at home that I regularly access with VNC from work. AppleVNCServer has a habit of hanging every few days in between sessions. Sometimes if I'm lucky I can get in with logmein and kill the process, but logmein is really flaky from my connection at work for some reason so I can't rely on it. I want to set up a folder within Dropbox using folder actions that will run a script when I drop a file in it. I then want that script to kill the AppleVNCServer process.

I found this ( http://macstuff.beachdogs.org/blog/?p=31) which looks like it should pretty much do what I want. I changed "Finder" in his example to "AppleVNCServer". It seems to identify the process ID (209), but won't kill it. I get the following message:
error "sh: line 0: kill: 65
209: arguments must be process or job IDs" number 1

This is the script:

set app_name to "AppleVNCServer"
set the_pid to (do shell script "ps ax | grep " & (quoted form of app_name) & " | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'")
if the_pid is not "" then do shell script ("kill -9 " & the_pid)

Does anyone see what's wrong here? I'm only just getting into Applescript. The shell script part is a little over my head...

Thanks,
Sean

G4 Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 22, 2010 1:20 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 22, 2010 1:33 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

I don't understand why you need to do it that way.
just do


try
do shell script "killall AppleVNCServer"
end try

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Answer 2

Jan 22, 2010 1:37 PM in response to V.K.

Wow, yeah that's a lot simpler.

I tried it out, but I got this back in the event log:

tell current application
do shell script "killall AppleVNCServer"
--> error "No matching processes belonging to you were found" number 1
end tell

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Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 22, 2010 1:39 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

that means that VNC server is not currently running. try it when somebody is screen sharing into the computer you are currently on.

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Answer 4

Jan 22, 2010 1:42 PM in response to V.K.

That's the funny thing, I'm actually screen sharing in to try these out, expecting the connection to terminate if the script is successful. I have Activity Viewer open, and I do see AppleVNCServer is running...

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Answer 5

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 22, 2010 1:50 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

I can't explain that. it works for me. I just tried it. also, I'm not sure why you are doing it via applescript. just ssh into the computer and run


killall AppleVNCServer

directly from terminal.

Message was edited by: V.K.

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Answer 6

Jan 22, 2010 1:51 PM in response to V.K.

Oh you know what, I'm trying this on my 10.6 mac at the moment (my 10.5 mini that I hope to implement this on is already locked up for the day), does that make a difference?

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Answer 7

Jan 22, 2010 2:02 PM in response to V.K.

I'll have to look into that, I've never used SSH before. I'll do some reading tonight and see if I can figure it out. Thanks for the help!

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Answer 8

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 22, 2010 2:16 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

Sean C. Carter wrote:
Oh you know what, I'm trying this on my 10.6 mac at the moment (my 10.5 mini that I hope to implement this on is already locked up for the day), does that make a difference?

no, it doesn't make a difference. but I don't understand. if you don't use ssh how were you planning to run those commands on the remote mac anyway? I'm really confused. as I understand it you problem is that you vnc into a remote mac and the vnc server on that remote mac hangs. then you need to access that mac remotely and kill the vnc server process. the only way I see how to do that is via ssh.

sshing is easy. just enable remote login on thaat remote mac in system preferences sharing. then on your mac open terminal and enter


ssh unsername@ip.address

where username is your user name on the remote mac and ip.address is the ip address of the remote mac.

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Answer 9

Jan 22, 2010 2:21 PM in response to V.K.

I figured I'd have an applescript that could be triggered by a folder action. I use Dropbox (the app) and I could just drop a text file (or anything really) into the specified folder and it would sync over and cause the applescript to run.

Maybe that's a little over complicated, but it made sense to me...

Also I use windows XP at work, so I don't have terminal, unless the command prompt can be used om a similar way?

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Answer 10

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 22, 2010 2:26 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

you can ssh from windows too. I don't use windows but that's easily possible.
in the old days when I still used windows I used PuTTy to ssh
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

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Answer 11

Jan 22, 2010 2:29 PM in response to V.K.

I'll look into that tonight. I have some playing around to do 😉

Thanks for your help VK!

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Answer 12

Jan 24, 2010 5:00 PM in response to V.K.

Hi VK,

So I've enabled SSH on my Mini and I've successfully logged into it from another location (using my MacBook for now). I screenshare to it, and at the same time open terminal on my MacBook:


Last login: Thu Jan 21 20:33:14 on console
MacBook:~ ltcarter47$ ssh ltcarter47@xx.xx.xx.xxx
The authenticity of host 'xx.xx.xx.xxx (xx.xx.xx.xxx)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'xx.xx.xx.xxx' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Password:
Last login: Mon Mar 23 14:49:00 2009
PPC-Mac-Mini:~ ltcarter47$ killall AppleVNCServer
No matching processes belonging to you were found

I'm baffled... Seems like that should do the trick right?

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Answer 13

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 24, 2010 5:14 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

this is very strange. it works for me.
run this in terminal while logged in via ssh


ps aux |grep AppleVNC

what's the output?

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Answer 14

Jan 24, 2010 5:29 PM in response to V.K.


PPC-Mac-Mini:~ ltcarter47$ ps aux |grep AppleVNC
ltcarter47 112 12.0 1.7 153180 17640 ?? S 5:02PM 3:36.42 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AppleVNCServer
root 31 0.0 0.1 76368 1064 ?? Ss 5:01PM 0:00.08 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/Support/RFBRegisterMDNS
PPC-Mac-Mini:~ ltcarter47$

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Answer 15

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jan 24, 2010 5:34 PM in response to Sean C. Carter

according to this command you are running AppleVNCServer as ltcarter47 so doing


killall AppleVNCServer

should work. also


kill 112

should do the same. 112 is the current PID of the AppleVNCServer process.

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