Reach your Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook from the systems your people already use.
Meet HearthGate: the Mac-side server layer for secure VNC over SSH. It is also the Mac-side SSH layer for trusted full-access keys, with Built-in Terminal Actions that appear inside the terminal your OS already has, no separate terminal app or client-side add-on required. It can use OpenSSH's hybrid ML-KEM key exchange when supported, enforce VNC lockdown through the firewall, and keep familiar RFB/VNC viewers, including full legacy client support, in your workflow. It's also an SSH server you can enforce, key by key: grant one key full SSH and VNC, lock another to VNC-only, so a leaked key exposes the screen and nothing else.
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When you turn on Screen Sharing, macOS leaves the screen service reachable across your local network. From its first release, HearthGate has reduced that attack surface at the kernel level: port 5900 is available only through an already authenticated SSH tunnel.
Tahoe made the architectural choice clearer. Its Application Firewall can block all incoming connections, including SSH. When SSH must remain reachable while the screen path stays sealed, the right layer is pf, the packet-filter layer HearthGate has used since day one.
Most hardening guides tell you to switch Screen Sharing off. HearthGate keeps it, and seals it.
Learn why Tahoe validated the model
block in proto tcp from any to any port 5900
pass in inet proto tcp from 127.0.0.1 to any port 5900
pass in inet6 proto tcp from ::1 to any port 5900Features
Press / on an empty prompt inside a HearthGate SSH session and a command palette opens right in the terminal: 65 curated macOS actions with fill-in-the-blank prompts and real Tab path-completion. The finished command is typed onto your prompt, never run for you, so you always press Enter yourself.
Hand someone a separate, isolated way in, guest screen sharing over SSH or a guest shell, without ever sharing your own Mac login. When you disconnect, revoke, or delete a guest, their on-screen session closes right away, and a dropped guest connection is cleaned up on its own within about a minute. Your connection hooks stay tied to your sessions, not theirs.
you
SSH + VNC · full access
guest-helperGuest
Screen Sharing over SSH · isolated login
System Controls let an authorized remote session inspect Mac services, running processes, and live system logs, then start, stop, restart, enable, or disable services without leaving the secure connection.
