Perform actions on macbook from homeassistant ?

[vagrant hill]

hello,

im not that new to HA, but recently i moved to macOS, and im struggling at performing actions on my mac remotely from HA - potentially integrated into many automations.

the companion app for the mac seems irrelevant for that matter as much as im aware (please correct me if im wrong)
so SSH is the way to go(?)

for starters, i just wanna go with a very basic action - initiate a screensaver remotely: 'open -a ScreenSaverEngine'
(this command is working in the terminal on mac, and ALSO working on the HA terminal through SSH)

• but the missing piece is to make it into a script/button/switch/whatever - it just doesnt work no matter what i try...

do you know how i should go about it? is SSH even the most suitable way? how about running macOS shortcuts from HA?
TIA

[oblique basin]

someone posted this a while back #1381163743878053928
perhaps worth looking at?

[vagrant hill]

ok i checked it out thanks. it seems to lack the ability to run scripts/ terminal commands which would allow the complete freedom of action id expect, (and its also a paid app) ...

[oblique basin]

oh I didn't realise it has a price on it. I am not a mac user. was just something i remembered seeing.
ssh is probably a reasonable option. there is a integration on HACS called "SSH" which may be helpful although i havent ued it myself. much less with a mac

[vagrant hill]

its weird because this command isnt working:
shell_command:
start_mac_screensaver: "ssh 'lonlav@192.168.1.123' 'open -a ScreenSaverEngine'"

yet i do see it available in automations

[oblique basin]

try the ssh integration on hacs instead of using shell command. shell command is a bit strange in the way it works because of system contexts and stuff

[vagrant hill]

ok i tried that but it seems to be only for windows/linux...

[oblique basin]

huh? ssh is ssh it doesnt matteer what the host is

[vagrant hill]

aahh im obviously lacking some crucial (and probably basic) knowledge about that then, please excuse my ignorance - when im at the 'add integration' part - i need to choose which Default commands , whats the right one then? and also im not sure whats the host field is referring to, its not specified in the documentation from what i see

[oblique basin]

host is your mac. e.g. hostname or ip address

do macs accept ssh connections by default or do you have to enable it? i have no idea