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What is Hardware Monitor Remote? |
The program Hardware Monitor Remote is an add-on to the program Hardware Monitor for the Mac OS X operating system.
Hardware Monitor Remote allows you to use a hardware monitoring service on a remote Macintosh system. Other computers can contact this system via network (local area network, wireless network or the Internet) to receive readings from all available hardware sensors. This includes the following sensor types if the system is equipped with them:
Hardware Monitor can fully analyze your computer and will show exactly which sensors are available.
Moreover, the applications can display additional technical data. Among other information this includes:
The following picture shows the basic setup:
Hardware Monitor allows you to monitor the computer it is running on in the standard configuration. Hardware Monitor Remote extends its capabilities to monitor additional computers in the network as well. You can connect to an unlimited number of computer simultaneously and monitor them all from a single workstation. (In practice, the actual number may be limited by the speed of your network.) Of course you can also use several monitoring stations to receive data from an arbitrary number of other computers.
In the following example, 4 computers are running Hardware Monitor Remote while 2 are running Hardware Monitor. Note that one of the system is running both applications at the same time. The arrows indicate in which direction the sensor readouts are being transferred.
You will need one registration code ("license to use") for each computer that is monitored simultaneously. In the example above, 5 (not 6) registration codes are needed (under the assumption, all 5 computers are running at the same time).
This reference manual contains detailed information about registering and unlocking Hardware Monitor Remote. For additional information about the features of Hardware Monitor, please see the reference manual of Hardware Monitor.
Hardware Monitor Remote is part of an application suite of 9 different programs. The following table shows which products are compatible with the remote monitoring service:
| Application | can connect to Hardware Monitor Remote |
remarks |
| Hardware Monitor | yes |
|
| Hardware Monitor Lite | yes |
configure remote link with Hardware Monitor |
| Hardware Monitor command-line version (hwmonitor) |
no |
use remote login via SSH instead |
| Hardware Monitor Widget Edition | no |
|
| Hardware Monitor Remote | not applicable |
|
| Temperature Monitor | yes |
limited to monitoring temperature sensors on the local computer but not on the remote computer |
| Temperature Monitor Lite | yes |
configure remote link with Temperature Monitor |
| Temperature Monitor command-line version (tempmonitor) |
no |
use remote login via SSH instead |
| Temperature Monitor Widget Edition | no |
To guarantee smooth operation, it is recommended to let only application versions with the same release numbers communicate with each other. This means if you are running Hardware Monitor Remote version 3.0, you should use Hardware Monitor 3.0 or Temperature Monitor 3.0 to make a network connection to the monitored computer.
Hardware Monitor Remote contains a safeguard which communicates with the security features of Mac OS X. Under normal conditions, Hardware Monitor Remote is restricted to behave like a normal user program and does not have any extended privileges. For example it cannot use any system features which could affect more than the current user. However, the main task of Hardware Monitor Remote is to run a background monitoring service which affects all users. To do this, the built-in safeguard of Hardware Monitor Remote requests permission from Mac OS X to temporarily use a system feature which needs extended privileges. As response to this request, Mac OS X will completely "freeze" Hardware Monitor Remote and open a password entry panel in which you'll have to enter a valid password for one of the system's administrators. If the password is correct, Mac OS X will allow Hardware Monitor Remote to continue and to execute the requested action. If the password was wrong, Hardware Monitor Remote will also continue, but will additionally receive the response that the permission was not granted and the current request is rejected. In that case, Hardware Monitor Remote cannot perform the action currently selected. With this design it becomes impossible that an unauthorized person could misuse an application like Hardware Monitor Remote.
This policy strictly complies with Apple's software guidelines for system utilities. Note that Hardware Monitor Remote doesn't even "see" the administrator password when it is entered. All security-related interactions are directly handled and monitored by Mac OS X. So even in the unlikely case a computer virus would attack Hardware Monitor Remote, trying to "eavesdrop" on your password entry in an attempt to store and steal the password, it would have no success, because only the specially protected core of Mac OS X actually receives and checks the entered password information.
The security policy outlined above puts some limitations on possible places where your copy of Hardware Monitor Remote can be stored and can be launched from. Mac OS X does not allow that you run a system utility from one of the following locations:
You can run Hardware Monitor Remote from the following volumes:
The recommended location where to put Hardware Monitor Remote is of course the Applications folder of your system disk, or a subfolder of the Applications folder.
If you copy Hardware Monitor Remote to another volume or into a folder with different ownership, the Finder will display a warning that you are about to copy an application with special permissions.