Remote Management & VNC password got changed?!

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Remote Management & VNC password got changed?!

Ok. Any help here would be much appreciated.

I remotely manage a mac mini that stores media files. I always used Remote Management (specifically the screen sharing daemon in Mac OS X) to manage the ftp server. Sometimes I use a VNC app on my phone or the Screen Sharing feature in Mac OS X on my laptop. However, all of a sudden, the password no longer works. This has never happened before, and I couldn't even find others having this problem in Google. Remote Management uses the local username and password, and VNC uses a designated password that I set in its System Preferences. Both no longer work. Nobody else has access to this server, so nobody could have messed with something - Mac OS just decided to change the passwords itself.

What is strange is, this same username and password that I use for remote management, still works great for accessing the server through the afp or ftp protocols! Authentication just fails for remote management AND VNC. It doesn't make any sense.

Since the mac mini is a thousand miles away in another State, it's difficult to troubleshoot. I can get someone to go over there and try a few things for me, but I don't have a keyboard or monitor hooked up to it. I guess I could have it plugged into a TV there, and have them buy a keyboard, but I was hoping I could fix this problem by doing the bare minimum.

What is suggested? Perhaps have someone do a hard restart and hope it solves itself in a restart? This is such a bizarre problem. Thank you.

I'm on Mac OS 10.6.8, and it's a Macmini2,1.

Posted on Jul 5, 2011 12:13 PM

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Answer 1

iamse7en Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 9, 2011 8:02 AM in response to iamse7en

So nobody has heard of this problem. Shame. Thanks for nothing, Apple Geniuses.

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Answer 2

nchristi

Level 1

4 points

Jul 24, 2011 12:33 PM in response to iamse7en

I am having the same issue. I did a remote upgrade and screen sharing is now dead. The unit was headless, but when I put a head on it and logged in, same effect. I deleted logins in keychain, rebooted, and same issue. All are static IPs.

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

53,081 points

Jul 24, 2011 6:36 PM in response to iamse7en

What Geniuses? This forum is just Mac OS X users, like you.

My suggestion is to ssh into this Mac mini (assuming you have System Preferencds -> Sharing -> "Remote Login" enabled), list the kerberos tickets, and then remove any existing kerberos tickets.

klist

kdestroy

If that doesn't do anything useful, I would ask if you have done a reboot? Again, if you can ssh into this system, you can reboot remotely using:

sudo reboot

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Answer 4

nchristi

Level 1

4 points

Jul 24, 2011 7:07 PM in response to BobHarris

Personally I can vnc through Safari on a static IP, but trying to connect through the hostname is not working. Hmmm...klist doesn't show any tickets, but I am not sure if it ever did. I can't ssh but I probably shut down remote login. I used to remote in through screen sharing to get a terminal window, that used to be sufficient(!)

Screen sharing to me has always seemed flaky. I have to sign in through AFP to get the authentication for screen sharing under finder. Trying screen sharing would leave an orphaned NetAuthAgent process that I would have to kill to get rid of a zombie login screen. If there is a proper way to do this, that would be great to hear, because I feel like I have a workaround that doesn't seem perfect. Kerberos seems to do the right thing, but then a reset or time expiration would leave me in the same place...another authentication problem.

The AFP still works with a password entry, and screen sharing works with an IP address instead of a hostname. On another thread they found changing the hostname on the remote machine and then changing it back seems to work to reset the henkiness. I can try this and still do it remotely.

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Answer 5

nchristi

Level 1

4 points

Jul 24, 2011 7:28 PM in response to nchristi

Using Server Admin, under settings...network, I was able to change the computer name and local hostname to a dummy name, log into that server under server admin, and change it back, followed by deleting the dummy server. All that worked because I was connected through a static IP. And that *didn't* fix it.

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Answer 6

BobHarris

Level 9

53,081 points

Jul 25, 2011 7:26 AM in response to nchristi

iamse7en reported his Mac mini was thousands of miles away.

nchristi, is your system on your local LAN? If it is, then you might want to use a utility such as "Bonjour Browser" <http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13388/bonjour-browser> and check if your Mac can be seen.

While not essential, you could try naming your Mac using a simple name with not space or special characters (eg. "Fred").

Do you more than one router in your home. For example, a broadband modem/router which one Mac connects to, and a separate WiFi base station that another Mac connect to. This would put 2 routers in the home, with a router between the 2 Macs, and in this situation, Bonjour will not cross router boundaries.

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Answer 7

nchristi

Level 1

4 points

Jul 27, 2011 6:30 AM in response to BobHarris

For me, it's not a problem of bonjour not working, the finder on the client side sees the server with no problem. I can file share with no problem. It's the authentication for screen sharing that isn't working. I followed three threads that covered the same problem, all of them had various suggestions, some relevant, some probably not so. None of them, so far, have helped. This weekend I plan to just abandon screen sharing and use a third party VNC.

At this point, not even a screen share to the IP address is working for me. But I can ssh and run most of what I need to do on this server from the shell.

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Answer 8

Sep 12, 2011 12:45 PM in response to nchristi

Just in case you also have remote desktop admin running on that server, there is a flaw whereby VNC access will not work when the ARD admin console is running. To fix, use the kickstart app (via SSH):

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -stop

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -restart -agent

These two commands will first stop all of the apple remote desktop daemons, then restart only the client daemon. You also could issue this command if the above still doesn't work. This will set the basic VNC server to work so that you at least can get in using a VNC viewer and perhaps fix things with the GUI.

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -configure -access -on -clientopts -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes -setvncpw -vncpw mypasswd -setreqperm -reqperm yes -restart -agent -verbose

Keep in mind that all of that assumes that you also have access through port 5900 to the VNC server. Just create an SSH tunnel when you connect to the server and redirect localhost:5900.

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Answer 9

Sep 27, 2011 8:35 AM in response to iamse7en

Hello,

Just curious, did you ever figure this out? I'm having exactly the same issue.

JM

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Answer 10

iamse7en Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 27, 2011 8:50 AM in response to jackdavidmartin

I ended up having someone hard restart it for me (I don't think I had ssh enabled at the time), and it fixed my problem. However, I started having weird things happen to my Mac Mini before this, first starting with my username password no longer working. I had to have someone boot off a DVD and change the username password back to what it was. Then this VNC error happened. Then I started getting kernel panics every few hours. I took it in to Genius Bar, and the first time, they said it was a hard drive failure and replaced the internal HD. Things were great for about 3 weeks, then started getting kernel panics again, and noticed the internal HD was having issues. Took it back in, and they ran more tests and discovered it was the RAM that was causing the corruption. They replaced the internal HD again and the RAM at no charge (because I already paid for the first repair, which was the wrong diagnosis). I'm sure things would be great again with this machine, but I ended up buying a new mac mini (because this one was a bit old) and sold the old one. I tested it before I sold it, and it seemed to work flawlessly.

So, in a round about way, I starting having weird software issues (like passwords changing themselves) probably because of hard drive failures, caused by bad RAM. The Mac Mini worked flawlessly for me for several years, until I started getting these weird problems. This may not have anything to do with your problem, but I suggest if you ever see anything weird, back up your stuff just in case. It doesn't hurt and external HDs are so cheap these days.

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Answer 11

dmt1

Level 1

24 points

Apr 23, 2012 4:57 PM in response to iamse7en

I just downloaded RemoteDesktopClient3.5.2.dmg from Apple and screen-sharing between my headless MacMini and my MacbookAir started at once and happened much faster than before the problem began.

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