> Three decades later, with the release of macOS 26.5, Apple caught up: you can finally set your Mac to 'Always' boot whenever power is restored, regardless of how it was shut down.
Back in the 1990s, a Mac sysadmin showed me a clever trick for this.
Get one specific Apple Desktop Bus keyboard that has a soft power key on it, I believe the Apple Extended Keyboard[1]. Then get a Bic pen[2]. Push down the power key on the keyboard, and while it's still down, wedge the pen cap between the key and the keyboard case.
The pen cap is the perfect size and shape to hold the key down, and Bic pens are easy to find. There are no ill effects from having the power key down all the time, and the Mac will boot up after a power failure. So you don't have to drive to work just to push the power button.
This was especially handy considering you sometimes needed to use Macs as servers (file server, printing, certain Mac-only applications, etc.), but Apple did not make servers.
How is it not lights-out? You could remotely power on/off the servers (XServe only). Other Macs could not do this, as they did not have the separate LOM network interfaces, etc.
I managed a bunch of XServes for a while, they were incredibly good hardware. The Mac Server software kinda sucked (not the LOM stuff, it was as good as any of the LOM from Dell, which is to say, not amazing, but workable).
This is an aside, but I really hate clickbait culture. You can find it anywhere, but the YouTube video embedded in that page is a really good example.
The title is: "Apple FINALLY lets you do this!"
The thumbnail shows someone plugging in (or unplugging) the power cable from a Mac Mini.
Neither is relevant to the video. Neither tells you what it's about. I'm sure this kind of clickbait works, because otherwise it wouldn't exist, but I am never going to click on that kind of slop. Never.
Unfortunately, any “creator” who wants to be searchable on YouTube needs to optimize for that algorithm. I have the same feelings as you - and it includes pictures of their face pointing to something, with a particular expression of surprise.
I give Jeff a pass though, and make sure I send alternate goodness signals like liking his YT videos after I watch them. He’s one of us.
Still a shame macOS doesn't support full Wake-on-LAN. This holds me back from properly repurposing my M1 Mac Mini as a remote development machine or CI/CD agent with turning it on and off via WoL+SSH.
It hurts even more to see the "turn power on whenever power is detected" feature is locked to Mac hardware from 2024 or newer. I don't see a reason why not all Apple Silicon machines can support this feature.
You’re thinking of the Bonjour sleep proxy. Normally if you tried to ssh to `mymac.local`, but your Mac was asleep, nothing would respond to the mDNS broadcast for `mymac.local`. If it had been long enough that your local mDNSResponder cache had expired, you’re out of luck.
The AirPort would take over for your Mac and respond to mDNS queries on behalf of its hostname. (I believe it would also repeat the service records.) So your lookup of `mymac.local` would resolve to your Mac’s last IP address, and the AirPort would send the WoL packet to your Mac’s MAC, hopefully in time for your TCP connection to succeed.
> Three decades later, with the release of macOS 26.5, Apple caught up: you can finally set your Mac to 'Always' boot whenever power is restored, regardless of how it was shut down.
Back in the 1990s, a Mac sysadmin showed me a clever trick for this.
Get one specific Apple Desktop Bus keyboard that has a soft power key on it, I believe the Apple Extended Keyboard[1]. Then get a Bic pen[2]. Push down the power key on the keyboard, and while it's still down, wedge the pen cap between the key and the keyboard case.
The pen cap is the perfect size and shape to hold the key down, and Bic pens are easy to find. There are no ill effects from having the power key down all the time, and the Mac will boot up after a power failure. So you don't have to drive to work just to push the power button.
This was especially handy considering you sometimes needed to use Macs as servers (file server, printing, certain Mac-only applications, etc.), but Apple did not make servers.
---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_Cristal
The power button on the Macintosh IIsi could be turned with a flat-head screwdriver to achieve the same thing you describe (locking it in the permanently-powered state): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIsi#/media/File:Mac...
Isn't it easier to scotch tape or better yet, duct tape it down?
Xserve had LOM hardware 20 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_MonitorEdit: Xserve was an Apple rack mounted server that ran a special version of Mac OS X
This isn’t quite lights-out, and Xserve ran the same version of Mac OS X Server you could install on any other Mac.
How is it not lights-out? You could remotely power on/off the servers (XServe only). Other Macs could not do this, as they did not have the separate LOM network interfaces, etc.
I managed a bunch of XServes for a while, they were incredibly good hardware. The Mac Server software kinda sucked (not the LOM stuff, it was as good as any of the LOM from Dell, which is to say, not amazing, but workable).
This is an aside, but I really hate clickbait culture. You can find it anywhere, but the YouTube video embedded in that page is a really good example.
The title is: "Apple FINALLY lets you do this!"
The thumbnail shows someone plugging in (or unplugging) the power cable from a Mac Mini.
Neither is relevant to the video. Neither tells you what it's about. I'm sure this kind of clickbait works, because otherwise it wouldn't exist, but I am never going to click on that kind of slop. Never.
Unfortunately, any “creator” who wants to be searchable on YouTube needs to optimize for that algorithm. I have the same feelings as you - and it includes pictures of their face pointing to something, with a particular expression of surprise.
I give Jeff a pass though, and make sure I send alternate goodness signals like liking his YT videos after I watch them. He’s one of us.
Still a shame macOS doesn't support full Wake-on-LAN. This holds me back from properly repurposing my M1 Mac Mini as a remote development machine or CI/CD agent with turning it on and off via WoL+SSH.
It hurts even more to see the "turn power on whenever power is detected" feature is locked to Mac hardware from 2024 or newer. I don't see a reason why not all Apple Silicon machines can support this feature.
I vaguely recall wake on lan actually worked with macs... but when powered on by an airport/airport extreme.
I might be wrong.
You’re thinking of the Bonjour sleep proxy. Normally if you tried to ssh to `mymac.local`, but your Mac was asleep, nothing would respond to the mDNS broadcast for `mymac.local`. If it had been long enough that your local mDNSResponder cache had expired, you’re out of luck.
The AirPort would take over for your Mac and respond to mDNS queries on behalf of its hostname. (I believe it would also repeat the service records.) So your lookup of `mymac.local` would resolve to your Mac’s last IP address, and the AirPort would send the WoL packet to your Mac’s MAC, hopefully in time for your TCP connection to succeed.
Wake-on-LAN works fine, but only wakes the machine from sleep. It won't boot a machine that's fully powered off.
depends on the implementation. which kind of embodies why WoL is so useless.