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OakHost Agent

OakHost Agent is a small application that can be installed on your cloud hosted Mac to allow for advanced metrics monitoring and API actions. This application is entirely optional and does not come pre-installed.

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OakHost Agent is currently in beta. Please reach out to us if you would like to participate in this closed beta. If you experience any issues or have any feature requests, please reach out to our support and let us know. We appreciate your feedback!

Features#

OakHost Agent is built to be a leightweight and secure system enhancement. It currently allows for the following features:

  • Advanced system metrics for CPU, memory and disk usage in the Customer Panel.
  • Smart power action handling without having to rely on forced reboots.
  • Improved monitoring of system availability in the Customer Panel.
  • Additional power actions via the Customer API.

We expect to add more features in the future.

Installing OakHost Agent#

OakHost Agent can only be installed on OakHost Cloud Macs:

  1. Sign in to the Customer Panel and navigate to your Mac server.
  2. Click the Agent tab and copy the install command. This includes a one-time secret to set up a secure connection.
  3. Log in to your Cloud Mac via SSH or Screen Sharing and paste the comand in the Terminal.
  4. Enter your user password when prompted.

You can verify a successful installation by watching the status indicator on the Customer Panel. You should also see the OakHost logo pop up in the menu bar on the top right of the Mac.

Security & Privacy#

OakHost Agent was built with strict requirements for both security and privacy. This is why the agent has limited capabilities that only allow for executing pre-defined actions. These include issuing a system reboot/shutdown and monitoring certain system metrics. No personal information will be accessed or gathered by the agent.

The agent is built to only communicate with trusted and pre-defined OakHost-controlled servers via secure and authenticated channels. Updates will only be installed if obtained and signed by a trusted OakHost source and certificate.

While we are confident that OakHost Agent is built to modern security standards, we understand that not everyone is comfortable running external software on their systems. This is why we made the decision to not pre-install OakHost Agent. Read more.

Uninstalling OakHost Agent#

Run the following command on your OakHost Cloud Mac with the Agent currently installed:

curl -fsSL https://www.oakhost.net/uninstall_agent.sh | sudo bash -s

How Are OakHost Macs Provisioned?#

Our Macs are provisioned with a mostly untouched macOS installation. This means that no software is pre-installed, besides the default applications shipped with macOS. We only apply a few configuration changes to allow for optimal performance in a hosted environment:

  • No additional software is installed. Only stock macOS applications are included.
  • Required applications like Xcode, IDEs, homebrew or OakHost Agent can be installed by the user.
  • Macs are not enrolled in an MDM by default. Enrolling your own MDM is supported.
  • High-level changes to the base configuration:
    • A new wallpaper is set (animated wallpapers and remote desktop don't mix well).
    • Certain power options are adjusted (sleep, power on network, etc.).
    • Certain services that don't make sense in a data center environment are disabled (Find My, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.).