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I've got an old 2010 Mackbook Pro, but the graphics card has died, so the display is useless. Can I repurpose this as a headless server by installing CentOS via target disk mode from my current MacBook Pro (over thunderbolt cable)?

Once I've installed CentOS, how can I SSH into it without a display on the host machine to get credentials?

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Yes, there are absolutely no problems with that:

  1. Plug the Thunderbolt cable to both Macs;

  2. Start the broken Mac in Target Disk Mode by pressing T during startup;

  3. Plug a USB drive or insert a DVD with the installing image of CentOS to your second Mac;

  4. Start the second Mac by holding option (Alt) at the startup and select the CentOS drive to boot it;

  5. Complete the installation process paying attention to not wipe your second Mac's HDD but installing the OS on the broke one;

  6. Create a user account with password, not just root;

  7. After installing everything, reboot both Macs normally;

  8. Connect the broke Mac with a Ethernet cable to the same network of your second Mac or you can just run a cable directly to it;

  9. Find out what's the IP address of your broke Mac by looking at your Gateway interface or type arp -a in the terminal;

  10. Use a SSH client and connect to the IP address of the broke Mac logging with the account you created earlier and then type the password: ssh [email protected].

Enjoy your new server!

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    a very detailed and understandable answer! keep it up!!
    – SwissCodeMen
    Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 16:27
  • Fantastic, thanks for that, much appreciated.
    – Modernape
    Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 17:38
  • Unfortunately I get the error message ssh: connect to host 192.168.0.15 port 22: Connection refused
    – Modernape
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 13:58
  • I did a quick search and looks like SSH is not installed by default on CentOS. I'm not sure tho. I would suggest booting CentOS on your second Mac by loading it from the first one using Target Disk Mode and installing SSH that way. Another way would be using a display or an iMac in Target Display Mode. Or... doing another clean installation looking for ways to install SSH but I'm not familiar with CentOS installation process. BTW does the Mac start? Did the installation went fine except for SSH?
    – serniko97
    Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 13:02

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