If Slink fails to authenticate when you connect to your home Mac, you are presented with the following message:

The example above shows an authentication failure when connecting to the home Mac “Chilli”. The error message you see will show the name of your home Mac, or if you have never connected to your home Mac, the name will be shown as “New Computer”.

Reasons why the problem may occur

The most common reasons for Slink failing to authenticate are:

• The user name is incorrect
• The password is incorrect
• The Slink ID is incorrect
• Remote Login is not enabled for the user name on your home Mac

Resolution 1: verify that user name is correct

Slink connects using a normal Mac OS X user name from your home Mac.

On your home Mac: verify the user name that you want to configure Slink with by opening Applications > System Preferences:

Click on Accounts (highlighted above) to open up the Accounts System Preferences pane:

Select the account that you want to use in the left hand pane. The user name you should configure Slink with is displayed in the Full Name field (highlighted above).

If the full name is long or contains non-alphanumeric characters, you can use the Mac OS X short name instead. To show the short name, first click on the padlock in the bottom left of the Accounts pane and authenticate with an administrator user name and password. Then right-click (control-click) on the account in the left hand pane:

Select the Advanced Options… to display the Advanced Options sheet:

The short user name you can configure Slink with is displayed in the Account Name field highlighted above.

Once you have determined the user name on your home Mac that you want to use, you can verify that this is the user name actually configured in Slink.

On your remote Mac (the Mac you want to connect to your home Mac with): select the computer in the left hand pane of the Slink window and then click on the edit button highlighted below:

The computer edit sheet is shown:

The user name (“Olof Olsson” in the example) must be the Mac OS X user name that you looked up on your home Mac.

The user name can be either:

• The full name
  For example: “Olof Olsson”.
• The short name
  For example: “olof”.

Resolution 2: verify that the password is correct

When you connect to your home Mac, Slink asks for the password for the user name configured:

You must enter the password for the user name you configured Slink with for your home Mac. (See “Resolution 1″ section above.) This is the password that you would normally use when you log in to the home Mac sitting down in front of it.

In the example above, you must enter the password for the Mac OS X user “Olof Olsson” on the home Mac “Chilli”.

Resolution 3: verify that the Slink ID is correct

Slink must be configured with the Slink ID provided by the Slink Agent on your home Mac. In particular, If you have more than one home Mac that you are connecting to, ensure that Slink is configured with the correct Slink ID for the particular home Mac that you want to connect to.

On your home Mac: open up System Preferences > Slink Agent:

The Slink ID is shown in the top left of the Slink Agent pane (7H62X9JTi n the example above).

On your remote Mac (the Mac you want to connect to your home Mac with): verify that the Slink ID is correct by selecting the computer in the left hand pane of the main window and then clicking on the edit button highlighted below:

The computer edit sheet is shown:

The Slink ID (7H62X9JT in the example above) must match the Slink ID shown in the Slink Agent System Preferences pane on your home Mac.

Resolution 4: verify that remote login is enabled for the user

Remote Login must be enabled on your home Mac for the Mac OS X user that you configured Slink with.

On your home Mac: verify that Remote Login is enabled by opening up Applications > System Preferences:

Click on the Sharing button to open up the Sharing pane:

Select Remote Login in the left hand pane. Then ensure that “Allow access for” is set to “All users” (top arrow), or that it is set to “Only these users” and that the user you want to connect with is added to the list (bottom arrow).