Remote Power on/Start up for iMacs??

[martin_hannah]

I'm looking for a way to remotely power on imacs through ARD, i'm working for a school that have 100 imacs tied into open and active directory controlled with ARD and WGM from their mac server. When i've tried it before through ARD it has told me that "lights out management" is required which I have discovered is only available on os x servers.. The windows boxes here start up fine with wake on LAN..

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[mac_shinobi]

Is there no options in WGM to set the energy saver options as I know on Snow leopard there is an auto wake option to make the mac power on at a certain time.

[martin_hannah]

Yea i'm pretty sure there is.. It's just I wouldn't want them auto starting on a regular basis, just for when I need to run updates/install new software remotely i.e half terms/school breaks etc

[nonmonotonic]

In ARD go to view menu --> customize toolbar and drag whatever button you want to the toolbar (restart/shut down is not there by default).

 

see pic.

[martin_hannah]

Yup I found those.. you can also do the same thing from the manage menu. But when I execute a "Power On" it fails as the clients don't support lights out management.. There must be other schools/businesses out there that have had this issue?

[amfony]

ive got no positive comment other then "yes, ive had this issue as well"

 

seriously -- i dont know if the nics support WOL/MagicPacket. Only cause i dont know much about the nic hardware at all. Either way id love to have this functionality

[Marci]

There must be other schools/businesses out there that have had this issue?

 

Yup, plenty of us, but none of us with a solution. The closest you'll get is to set your client Macs up to 'Sleep' rather than shutdown. If they're asleep, you can wake them via WoL. If they're shutdown, you're stuffed without physical access to the machine's power button.

[nonmonotonic]

The reason that you cant remote manage is probably because its not switched on!

 

Go to sharing in system preferences (client mac).

 

Tick the remote management box and which enables the remote manage button (pic1). Check out the options under computer settings.

 

When you tick the box you will get a list of options that you can enable (pic2).

I have all mine enabled on all my client Macs.

 

Lights out management is for servers and is different from VNC ( which ARD is )

Edited June 1, 2011 by nonmonotonic

[Marci]

Remote Management still doesn't allow you to remote-power-on a client from cold.

[nonmonotonic]

That is correct but thats not the same a wake on lan. No remote system will power up a machine thats completely switched off. WoL is tied into power management and is triggered through network card. WoL is incorperated into ARD however I also use a simple stand alone app. I restart and wake Macs remotely via ARD but to power up from off, as you said, I have to physicaly touch the machine.

 

I believe lights out management is specific to xServe . Management is via a second network port which has its own IP address.

 

Automatic startup/shutdown can be done through energy saver section of system prefs. under schedule.

 

Do none of these solve your problem?

Edited June 1, 2011 by nonmonotonic

[iSteve]

We use Workgroup Manger to schedule power on weekdays just before lessons, and power off every day at 4pm. Apart from scheduling in this way, there isn't away AFAIK to start the machines from cold.