Connecting Omarchy with MacOS locally

One of the first things I wanted to get sorted was syncing files quickly between my main Macbook (M1 2020 Macbook) and my Omarchy (the 2017 Macbook)

This article goes through how I did it.

First I needed to allow for external login on my Mac, and figure out the hostname. See my previous article on this.

After you have found out and activated remote access on the mac, it's time to find thje Omarchy hostname. In my case it was "archlinux".

Find out by running hostnamectl in the terminal and grabbing the "Static hostname" and adding a ".local" afterwards.

So in my case it was like following:
My MacOS host name was: macbookpro.local
My Omarchy host name was: archlinux

To simply connect from the Omarchy to my mac, i could do the following:

ssh eddie@macbookpro.local where eddie is my username, and typing my password when prompted.

How about the other way? Connecting to my Omarchy from the MacOS?

First I needed to install openssh. I did it via the alt-super-space - «install» - «package» and «openssh».

Start the SSH daemon (immediately)
sudo systemctl start sshd

Enable SSH at boot (optional but recommended)
sudo systemctl enable sshd

Confirm it’s running
systemctl status sshd

Then I can connect from the MacOS like this:

ssh eddie@archlinux.local where eddie is my Omarchy user and typing my password when prompted.

Moving files from the MacOS to Omarchy

First off I install rsync. On Omarchy I do that via the install packages solution again, and on the MacOS I use Homebrew.

Now, as an example I'll mode the folder /Documents/example from my MacOS into my /Documents folder on my Omarchy. 

In this case I am in the /home/eddie directory on my Linux - meaning one level above the /Documents folder.

Running the following rsync command syncs the folder from the MacOS to the Linux machine, and now I have the example folder within the Documents folder on my Linux. (tips: run the rsync command with --dry-run as a parameter to test before running it)

rsync -av eddie@macbookpro.local:~/Documents/example Documents

Making it better. ssh-key instead of typing password every time

For this you’ll need an ssh key on each computer.

To create, run: ssh-keygen -t ed25519
continue and add a passphrase if you want (I didnt)

Once created on the Linux machine, add it to the mac like this:

ssh-copy-id eddie@macbookpro.local

Now the Linux ssh-key is inserted to the mac, and allows access without the password.

Test like this:
ssh eddie@macbookpro.local
Now it should work without password prompt.

How about the other way? Connecting to the Linux from MacOS?
Same process. Make ssh key and add it the other direction:

I made a new dedicated ssh key for this:
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/ided25519arch -C "mac->arch"

Add a clean SSH config entry
Edit ~/.ssh/config on the mac and add this:

Copy the key (will ask for your Linux password once)
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/ided25519arch.pub omarchy

After this now I can just type ssh omarchy and it should work without password prompt.

That same setup from the linux to mac:
edit the ~/.ssh/config

And add:

After this just type:
ssh mac to connect to the mac from the linux machine.

Adding simple commands for sending back and forth

Now we can create simple bash commands for sending to and from the Desktop on the mac / linux machine (inspired by Derek Sivers)

On my Linux machine, I have now created two files:

1. Create the bin folder (if needed):

mkdir -p ~/bin

2. Create tomac and tolinux scripts:

3. Make the scripts executable:

chmod +x ~/bin/tomac ~/bin/tolinux

4. Add ~/bin to your PATH (if it isn’t already):

export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"

Then reload:

source ~/.bashrc # or ~/.zshrc

Now you can just type:

Because I both use a mac and a linux, this way it's easy for me to just dump files to the desktop, and transfer over to the other computer as needed.