r/macsysadmin 11d ago

Mac Mini Fleet

Hello,

I am a server provider who usually provides windows/linux servers to my customers. Lately there has been an uptick in requests for Mac Mini Servers, so I got a bunch. But I am having trouble managing them.

They are constantly going down, freezing, remote access and SSH going down, customers breaking them by changing settings, etc... and I am having to send remote hands in everytime to fix the devices

For people managing large Mac fleets/server farms:

What are you using for:

mass updates

remote command execution

preventing users from breaking remote access

recovery after macOS updates

Best practices for maintaining persistent remote access?

Main priorities are:

reliability

easy recovery

customer flexibility

Would appreciate hearing from anyone operating a fleet of Macs remotely.

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u/bolhuijo 11d ago

We find them "unreachable" all the time, only to see the local console is responding via remote KVM. If we're lucky we can reboot remotely, else the data center guy has to power cycle them when he's in. I suggest a remotely accessible power strip for those hard reboot days.

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u/zme243 11d ago

Shelly Brand plugs are phenomenal, local API does not require cloud access.