Unfreeze my Mac!

November 5, 2007 1:31 PM

I access my Mac remotely through PuTTY and VNC (using SSH). I just upgraded to Leopard, and on this business trip, Leopard seems to have hung as it flips into the screen saver (it is using the iTunes album art, and I just get the screen saying "Looking for Songs", and cannot exit. PuTTY still gives me access to the terminal, and this is still working and responding fine, so I know the Mac itself is still running fine. As a *nix novice, is there a command I can run in the terminal to reset Leopard? (Or even restart the machine!) so I can restore my remote access? Thanks! CSG
posted by csg77 to computers & internet (5 comments total)

sudo shutdown -r now
posted by kc8nod at 1:39 PM on November 5, 2007

This terminal command:

sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now

will restart your computer (I haven't tried Leopard, but it works with previous 10.X releases). If you have VNC setup to start on boot that you should be good to go.
posted by cftarnas at 1:42 PM on November 5, 2007

Thanks guys - seems to have done something and taken the system down, although not sure it has come up again properly as I can't login. Never mind, will have to sort it our when I get home!
posted by csg77 at 1:47 PM on November 5, 2007

Why not just kill the current screen saver? Much less drastic:

sudo killall ScreenSaverEngine
posted by pmbuko at 2:42 PM on November 5, 2007

Or you could even just kill your login with:

sudo killall WindowServer
posted by mkb at 2:51 PM on November 5, 2007