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03_connect_and_enable.md

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Connect to your EC2 Mac Instance and Enable GUI Access

Before you begin:

  • Ensure that you have launched a mac1.metal or mac2.metal instance as described here.

  • Ensure that you have access to the EC2 key pair used with launching the EC2 Mac instance.

Get connection information from the AWS Management Console

  • Go to the EC2 Instances Console, select your recently launched instance. Wait 7-8 minutes for the 'Status check' column to show “2/2 checks passed”:

  • Once both status checks return green, click the Connect button at the top of the panel:

  • The Connect dialog will display instructions for how to use your EC2 Key Pair and an SSH client to connect to the instance (see below for more details):

Connect using the AWS CLI and SSM

Replace instance-id with the instance ID of the EC2 Mac instance (returned after succesful launch, or found in the console):

aws ssm start-session --target=<instance-id> --region="us-east-2"

Continue with enable GUI access over VNC below.

Using Terminal on macOS or another command-line environment

Replace <ec2-key-pair> and <ip-address> with the ones used to launch the instance:

ssh -i <ec2-key-pair> ec2-user@<ip-address>

A successful SSH connection in macOS Terminal.

Continue with enable GUI access over VNC below.

Enable GUI access over VNC with Apple Remote Desktop

Create a password for the ec2-user user. This is necessary for Apple Remote Desktop:

sudo passwd ec2-user

Enable the Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) agent:

For macOS 12 or later:

sudo launchctl enable system/com.apple.screensharing ; sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

For macOS 11 or earlier

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on \
-configure -allowAccessFor -allUsers \
-configure -restart -agent -privs -all

You will recieve this response on success:

"Starting...
Warning: macos 10.14 and later only allows control if Screen Sharing is enabled through System Preferences.
Activated Remote Management.
Stopped ARD Agent.
ec2-user: Set user remote access.
Setting allow all users to YES.
Setting all users privileges to 1073742079.
Done.

Disconnect the existing session and reconnect, tunneling the VNC port (5900) over SSH, again replacing <ec2-key-pair> and <ip-address> with the ones used to launch the EC2 Mac instance:

exit
ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 -i <ec2-key-pair> ec2-user@<ip-address>

You can now using the the Screen Sharing app on macOS or any VNC client on Windows to connect to localhost and have GUI access to macOS!

(Optional) Continue on to the next step, resize the filesystem, display resolution, or mount an EFS filesystem.