Then, install the XFCE desktop and and install and configure VNC server software on the server.First, set up a server on Amazon’s EC2 service.If not, please see my previous posts on setting up a remote server on Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service.
I assume you already have an Amazon EC2 server running, with a VNC server configured and running on it. Screens is also a universal iOS app and works on both the iPad and the iPhone. There are other VNC viewer apps in the App Store but Screens seems to have a lot of functionality and I was confident it would support SSH tunneling. I use the Edovia Screens iPad app, which displays the full-screen desktop environment running on the remote server. To connect to a remote server from an iPad, we need a VNC viewer app.
In this blog post, I will show how to configure and use an iPad (and iPhone) VNC viewer app to view and control the desktop environment running on my Amazon EC2 server. I do not always have my laptop with me, but I usually have either my iPad or iPhone. I want to experiment with complex network simulations running on open-source networking software when I happen have the time, from any location with a WiFi connection. But what if I want to use my iPad to do control the remote Amazon EC2 server? Hopefully, the companies figure this out in the future as this is a big deal for MacOS developers.I recently configured an Amazon EC2 instance so that I could run the XFCE desktop environment on it and control it from my local laptop computer using SSH and VNC. If you see the cover image, that is both cool and a little strange.
It seems like Amazon and Apple should have been able to figure out a way to virtualize this in a partnership rather than resorting to running Mac Mini’s. At the same time, it is also a bit strange. With Thunderbolt and 10GbE options on the 2018 Mac Mini, we can see how AWS is able to design a bridge to the Mac Mini and start the integration process.
Still, those do not come with a MacOS license (although models such as the HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Mini sometimes see secondary market pricing impacted by those loading MacOS on those devices.) At STH, we always suggest abiding by licensing, which AWS’s service is designed to do. If you do watch that series, you will know that many of the 8th-gen core and later TinyMiniMicro nodes can be purchased with 32GB of memory for well under $500 with a Windows license. STH has two 8GB M1 Mac Minis already in the lab and Patrick says the “16GB Mac Mini will hopefully arrive by late December.” For those wondering if STH is doing Mac Minis as part of the Project TinyMiniMicro that work is already happening. Something else we noticed is that these instances offer twice as much RAM (32GB) as the current maximum that one can get in the M1 Mac Minis. Of course, beyond the basics of the cost of the Mac Mini itself, AWS provides the ecosystem of services behind the instances which can add more value running in the cloud versus an on-prem development cluster. Amazon says that these are Nitro equipped instances with 10Gbps of ENA networking throughput and up to 8Gbps of data transfer. Given that pricing, it would take around 73 days worth of on-demand pricing to equal the purchase price of the Mac Mini, without the power and cooling. AWS has the instances via US West (Oregon) for example at $1.083 per hour with a minimum of a 24-hour duration but there are plans to reduce those costs as well. AWS Mac Mini Instances ResourcesĬurrently, this configuration is $1899 on the Apple store. Since these are Coffee Lake Intel Core i7-8700B generation parts, they include Intel UHD 630 Graphics. We can also see that these are equipped with 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory. AWS says that M1 powered instances are “in the works, and planned for 2021.” Instead, these are 2018 generation Mac Mini’s with 6-core Core i7 CPUs. Amazon AWS EC2 Mac Mini Powered MacOS Instancesįor those wondering, these are not Apple M1 Arm-based Mac Minis. They are using Apple Mac Mini desktop PCs and creating tal instances. The company is doing it in what is seemingly an odd, yet elegant fashion. Amazon AWS EC2 now has MacOS instances in the cloud. Well this is certainly an exciting development.