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Far Away Mac is a weblog by Macminicolo.net about using your Mac as a server. We offer tips, application reviews and tutorials on setup. Let us know if we can be of any help.

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I’ve had people write and ask how they can see what’s happening on their server. There are a lot of ways to do this, but fseventer is the best I know.

This application offers a GUI to watch all things that are changing on your Mac. It “observes filesystem changes using the same underlying API as Spotlight” so it is pretty thorough.

This is also a handy way to see what files are being changed when you run an installation or an update on your server.

The app is free…but quite forward about donations each time you quit the app. Get it here.

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Whenever I set up a new Mac mini in the data center (or help someone set up their own to send in) I’ll always suggest to have “Remote Login” enabled whether they regularly use SSH or not. The reason for this is it gives you a second way in if you were to lock yourself out by turning off Apple Remote Desktop or Leopard’s Screen Sharing. It’s easy to do.

For Apple Remote Desktop 3.2 (all one line):

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/
Contents/Resources/kickstart -configure -allowAccessFor -allUsers -privs -all

For earlier versions of Apple Remote Desktop, Apple has a nice document here.

For Leopard’s Screen Sharing:

$ cd /Library/Preferences
$ echo -n enabled > com.apple.ScreenSharing.launchd

(Thanks to this great hint on MacOSXHints.com.)

Computerworld has put together a short walkthrough on setting up Leopard Server with a Basic install.

“Leopard Server, the newest version of Mac OS X Server, sports many new updated features. One of the most innovative is a new interface that simplifies server setup and management. This new interface is designed primarily for small businesses or small workgroups within a larger organization that need server functionality but don’t have the resources to hire a full-time systems administrator.”

If this sounds like it could be of use to you, head on over for the text and photo walk through on how to get everything set up and running. You can read it here

If you’re like me, you may have quite a few servers in your ARD or VNC list. This little app is a nice reference tool while you’re working on different servers. Just put it in your applications folder and set it to run on startup and your IP address will be added to your menubar.

Head on over to the developer’s site to download the free application.