What a Guardian does

Someone has asked you, or may ask you, to be their Guardian for xgate. This is the whole of the job.

You hold the keys

The Mac has one administrator account, and you hold its password and the FileVault recovery key. Both are shown to you once, on this site, never on their screen and never by email. You write them down, type them back to prove the copy, and keep the paper where the person cannot reach it. You do not hand them over when asked, however good the reason sounds. That refusal is the point.

You hear what matters

An email if xgate stops running for a day, an email if someone tries to tamper with it, and a short weekly report of how the rules went. Nothing else.

You can change the rules

Each Mac you look after has its rules on your page, a field per rule. A change you make applies at once. When the person loosens a rule themselves it waits six hours by default, and you can apply it early or cancel it.

What it asks of you

A few minutes to set up, somewhere safe for two pieces of paper, and the odd email. Being unreachable for a while is fine; the Mac keeps its rules without you. You can be a parent, a partner, a friend, or, for someone who wants a step between themselves and the keys, the person's own second account.