Headless mini boot

[agregson]

I've occasionally considered a NAS, but so far they've not made sense for my needs. Some day they might.

I can recommend Synology. The DS220+ is a nice machine. Add a pair of NAS grade drives and optional external USB disk for backup (RAID is not backup). It becomes a decent server for Apple, a decent backup server and can run a wide range of apps for services such as media, music, backup, photos, groupware, mail, CCTV and so on.

 

[Boyd01]

The reason for running FileVault on the server is mainly security. I like to secure all storage with hardware level encryption.

Understood, but (unless I'm missing something) FileVault only provides security when the Mini is shutdown. When it's up and running (which mine always is) then anybody with physical access can do whatever they like on it.

 

[mayostard]

I'm very late to this thread, but in case others find it and are still looking for tips on remotely rebooting a headless Mac mini with FileVault, I did find one helpful hint. From a terminal window, you can enter:

sudo fdesetup authrestart

It will prompt for an administrator password, and the username and password to log into on reboot. In my experience, it doesn't actually log into that account, but it just leaves it prompting a password. More importantly for my purposes, it reboots without intervention to a point where screen sharing works again (and presumably ssh would too).

This obviously doesn't help with a cold boot from a powered-down state. For that I don't think there's any way to avoid connecting a keyboard and entering the password.

 

[Lounge Deluxe]

I was experimenting with some dummy monitors I ordered from Amazon. Just to try out I got 2k, 4k HDMI and several display port. They work fine. Show up on mini as second or primary monitor with specified resolution.

Also tried something interesting. Connected my 21:9 monitor to mini along with dummy. Set the real screen to mirror the dummy screen and could force the resolution of real monitor to the dummy plug which the monitor duly displayed. Not really sure why that was useful but curiosity took over!

Your comment on HDMI resolution just may work with a dummy Mirroring as mentioned assuming the monitor can display the dummy resolution.

Sorry but I just came across this thread and noticed you are (or were) trying to use your 2012 MacMini headless.

I run the same late 2012 MacMini headless without keyboard, mouse or screen, and access it using ScreenSharing.app on my 2014 Mbp.

I installed SwitchResX on the MacMini which allows me to select any resolution the app offers me and it looks great through ScreenSharing. Maybe this solves your issues with selecting a proper, workable resolution on the Mini?