Rebooting public workstations - automation

[David Chandler]

To the original poster (LS?):

If the workstations have 'intelligent' power supplies, as many laptops do,
you should be able to automate turning them off via the operating system,
and thus from across the network.  Turning them on would have to be done
manually still, (unless you got this special hardware you mentioned).

In this (Multnomah County) library, we schedule nightly rebooting and
clearing of browser cache files in order to insure the browsers' good
performance.  Some institutions choose to schedule their public computers
to completely reinstall themselves every night.

If your purpose for turning them off is for refreshing the operating
system... here are some suggestions for automating the process:

NT 4.0
Scripting "shutdown /r \\<workstation-name>" for each workstation can be
done (use the 'at' command to schedule it for running at night) among
other functions for cleaning out temporarily file spaces, browser cache
and cookies.

WIN 95/98 
I'm not sure what support for network-based remote control is
out there, but you might be able to remotely shut them down via an NT
workstation.  Otherwise, you can copy scheduled shutdown times into the
registry from across the network.  If you don't have an NT workstation,
simply save a copy of the registry before and after manually scheduling
the shutdown, find the altered registry entries and duplicate them to the
other workstations.  You have to be careful in working with the registry
and should probably verify the generic changes on a second pc scheduled
manually.  You should verify the function of the registry entries if at
all possible, and have the pc's backed up before propigating registry
changes.

LINUX/unix 
Put an entry in the /var/spool/cron/crontab file that restarts
the kernel regularly, (however you might normally initiate this from a
command in the default shell).  I don't know if Linux has 'intelligent'
power-supply driver support for many motherboards, but you might be able
to actually power pc's off through linux depending on the driver support.

David Chandler   davidc at nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us      (503)248-5223
Multnomah County Library -- (downtown) Portland, OR     fax(503)248-5226

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, Dan Lester wrote:

> Don't power them down.  No reason to do so.  Doing so will shorten
> their life anyway.
> 
> dan
> 
> 
> Tuesday, August 29, 2000, 1:52:04 PM, you wrote:
> 
> LS> Also, in situations where 20-40 pc's need to be shut down at night by
> LS> one staff person (either in a training room or in a public area on the
> LS> main floor) are there any recommendations for a new or rennovated space
> LS> to make this easier?  We've discussed powering down from the Information
> LS> Desk with a system that "sees" all the stations or electrical solutions
> LS> where we actually we want the power disconnected for a vacation or break
> LS> period.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan at RiverOfData.com
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com 
> 
> 
>