Mac Home Automation

While it’s technically possible to run XTension in the background on your main mac, this is not a good idea generally. XTension should have it’s own dedicated server somewhere to run constantly no matter what you’re doing. This server can also provide Time Machine backup drives, share iTunes content to AppleTV’s provide other file sharing and all sorts of other services on your network so it need not be dedicated to just XTension. An older Mac Mini capable of running at least the minimum system requirements should be fine though of course faster and more memory is always better.

XTension requires OSX 10.7 or later and can run on OSX Client or OSX Server.

XTension should be run as a user that has admin privileges (“Allow user to administer this machine” checkbox in the user control panel)

Open the downloaded zip file and copy the application to where you’d like it to live.

Your Mac should have a Static IP address on your local network. This makes it easier for other devices to connect to your XTension install and makes it possible for you to pass a port through your router to XTension for Web Remote or other remote control settings.

XTdb is happy to live in the Applications folder. It will create it’s database in the “Application Support” folder.

Video Pitcher is also happy to live in the Applications folder. It’s configuration is stored in the Preferences folder.

The Mac server should be setup to never go to sleep, you need your automation to keep happening after you walk away.

XTension cannot run without a user logged in, set your XTension user to log in automatically and XTension and other necessary apps to start at login by control clicking them in the dock and selecting “open at login”

Don’t run a fancy graphic screensaver, there is no reason to waste the CPU and energy and heat generated by all that graphics processing.

You may set the computer name screen saver to blank the screen and you may set it to lock so that a password is necessary to log in and make changes to the machine.

You should also setup the machine to share it’s screen and it’s disks so that you can access it remotely for continued XTension work and future updates and changes.

There is no need to keep a screen or keyboard connected to the machine after the initial setup once you have VNC or ARD working and sharing access to the machine.