How to connect remotely via ssh from Mac mini to iMac please anyone?

I would consider using TeamViewer.com to access the Mac remotely (free for personal use). It allows file transfer. LogMeIn.com also allows remote screen sharing, but you pay for file transfer.

OR, enable the iCloud "Back-to-My-Mac" feature that will also allow you to access your Mac remotely. This will allow screen sharing as well as file sharing.

You could also look at Hamachi VPN service (free for personal use). Hamachi is another service offered by LogMeIn.com

I do not have anything against ssh (I use it every day), but it is not easy to get everything configured correctly for remote across the internet access.

You will need to open ports in your home router for the Mac you want to connect with. See <http://portforward.com>. They will give you instructions for forwarding the ssh port 22 from the internet to your destination Mac. This is done on the router where your destination Mac is located.

Then you should consider getting a free dynamic DNS name so you can address the destination Mac by name instead of my an IP address that the destination Mac's ISP could change any time it feels like it. No-IP.com and DynDNS.org offer free dynamic DNS names. You will need to run a dynamic DNS updating utility on the destination Mac. The dynamic DNS name provider has these utilities, just download theirs.

Now that you have Remote Login enabled, your router doing the correct port forwarding, and a dynamic DNS name, you make your ssh connections

ssh username@dynamic.dns.name
scp username@dynamice.dns.name:/path/to/file/you/want/to/copy  /local/path/to/store/file
scp /local/file/to/copy username@dynamice.dns.name:/path/to/store/file

If you succeed in doing this, then you can expand into ssh tunnels, where you can Screen Share and File Share across ssh tunnels 🙂

Right to get to any computer from across the Internet you have to open certain ports on the router and direct the incoming traffic to a specific computer IP address. Just opening the port you are trying to connect through won't work. It has to be forwarded to one specific computer IP address. And that computer has to be listening on that port for a connection.

Screen sharing can do that with another computer using a VPN software program to do the connecting. Not sure why you are going the SSH route as there are much easier system for this. A few are Team viewer, Go to My PC (although that may be just for PCs. Don't know as I've never used it) and Log Me in.

Personally I connect to my home computers with Windows Remote Desktop system. Configuring each PC to listen on a different port and then forwarding that port to that specific PC in my router. I can connect to any PC at home, that is on of course, from anywhere in the world. Except maybe China.

Even from the Mac I can get to my home systems using MS's RDT client for Mac.

The IP address you get on a computer connected to the router is not the same IP address you use from a remote location. The IP you need for that is the one assigned to your Routers WAN/Internet port by your ISP. The IP the computer gets is a Private IP assigned to the computer by the router and can not be reached from the outside world without knowing the WAN/Internet IP of your router and having the router forward the request to connect to the PC IP.

I know it does sound, and is a little, confusing. Not for me as I picked up networking very easily, I'm a fast study.

Your best bet is to go with one of those Premade, paid for, services.

Is this from a Remote location or from the same LAN. Very different setups.

Have you tried Screen Sharing?

Linux is really not very different then Mac OS X when it comes to terminal.