VNC Guest Account
Enable Guest Access and HearthGate prepares a dedicated macOS guest account for remote help, shared machines, or temporary work. No Terminal setup or System Settings digging required.
HearthGate 1.11 is live
Give guests a screen or shell, not your Mac.
HearthGate 1.11 introduces VNC Guest Account support: a dedicated non-admin macOS account managed from HearthGate, with access issued through keys you control. Use it for SSH-gated screen sharing when someone needs the GUI, or for guest-account SSH terminal access when they only need command-line work. Your personal account, files, settings, and admin rights stay out of the hand-off.
Guest screen access over SSH
Issue a guest key for screen sharing through the protected SSH tunnel. The guest lands in the guest account, not your personal desktop, while your own session stays yours.
Guest SSH terminal access
When screen sharing is not needed, a guest key can be used for terminal work inside the guest account. It is useful for command-line help without exposing your own login.
Revoke cuts the cord instantly
Revoking a guest key now terminates live sessions immediately, including screen-sharing tunnels. Disconnect All and quit-time disconnect behavior are tighter too.
Guest access
Remote help should not require blind trust.
1.11 turns “can you connect to my Mac?” into a scoped hand-off. A guest can get a screen or a shell, but the access lives in a separate account with no admin rights and no need to reveal your personal Mac password.
Screen or shell
Choose what the guest can do
Guest keys make the access mode visible: SSH-gated screen sharing for GUI work, or guest-account SSH terminal access for command-line tasks.
Clean exit
Rotate or erase when done
Change the guest password when needed, or remove the whole guest account and its home folder when the temporary workflow is over.
No restart dance
Update protection on relaunch
After an update, HearthGate refreshes its security engine as soon as the app comes back, so new protections are active without a manual restart.
Operational examples
Where Guest Access changes the hand-off
The new guest workflow is for the exact moments where full access would be too much, but no access would block the work.
Use case
A family member needs help on a Mac
Create a guest account, issue a guest screen key, and let them connect without handing over your own Mac login or exposing your personal files.
Use case
A colleague needs to run terminal commands
Give them guest-account SSH access for command-line work. They get a shell in the guest space, while your account and admin rights remain separate.
Use case
A temporary guest session should end now
Click Revoke and HearthGate disconnects the active guest session immediately, instead of merely blocking the next login.
Use case
A guest workflow is finished
Rotate the guest password or remove the account when the work is done, then keep the access story visible in logs and events.
Security notes
A guest should be a boundary, not a favor.
HearthGate 1.11 is designed around least-privilege guest access. The product creates the Mac-side account, issues scoped keys, makes the access mode visible, and keeps revocation tied to live sessions.
Learn about SILA, the codnamacs security lifecycle frameworkRelease notes at a glance
- VNC Guest Account support creates and manages a dedicated non-admin macOS guest account from HearthGate.
- Guest access can be issued for SSH-gated screen sharing or for guest-account SSH terminal workflows.
- Guest keys are listed with clear capability badges so an operator can see whether the key is for screen access or terminal access.
- Revoking a guest key terminates live sessions immediately, including screen-sharing tunnels.
- Disconnect All and quit-time disconnect behavior are tightened so the remote session ends when the operator says it ends.
- Guest password rotation and account removal give temporary workflows a clean ending.
- Update-time protection refreshes on relaunch, so new hardening takes effect without a manual restart.
- Key-list, import-warning, and heavy-load reliability refinements make the UI state match the security state more closely.
HearthGate 1.11