Tech query: running a Mac without a monitor

[hudebnik]

I believe we're about to take possession of a Mac G4 Tower without a monitor; my tentative plan is to use it as a file server. (This is really motivated by the desire for a keyboard, since my keyboard-cleaning experiment last week was less than totally successful; the computer comes as a bonus :-) I should be able to ssh into it, so I can administer the Unix side of things, but I don't know how difficult it is to administer the Mac side of things remotely. Paying $300 for Remote Desktop seems like overkill for my minimal needs. Has anybody on my tech-savvy flist done this sort of thing?

Comments

[siderea]

I haven't done it myself, but I'm on a Mac G4 Tower this instant, running 10.3.9, and in my System Prefs - Sharing pane, under "Services" there's a tickybox for "Apple Remote Desktop". And I haven't paid for anything other than a standard OS install. I gather it's included by default now.

ETA: http://digg.com/apple/Remote_Desktop_on_your_Mac_for_Free (configuration)
and http://macapper.com/2007/03/19/vnc-remote-desktop-for-free/ (for discussion of free clients)

ETA2: The magic googlestring is "headless mac".

ETA3: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10342736-263.html :

Unfortunately, running a VNC server on a "headless" Mac (one with no display) can be a difficult task. The VNC server naturally cannot run if there is no system user interface server running, and the Mac OS X itself will not start the system user interface server unless it detects that a display is connected.

MacFixIt reader JR suggests a tip for tricking Mac OS X into thinking a display is attached:

"One easy, cheap way to solve it is run down to your local GoodWill computer store , buy a Apple display adapter plug for a couple bucks, and plug it into the video port on the machine.

"Model # 590-1120-A works fine. It has the Apple logo and model number written on it.

"This particular model of display adapter fools Mac OS X into thinking there is a monitor attached, and the OS will therefore start the system UI server the next time you boot up, allowing VNC server to start up normally. There may be other models that work; but this one I know for sure works."