I need to run a script/ batch file to wake up (WOL) several hundred PCs ( DELL gx150, gx 260, gx 270 gx 620 - mostly Windows XP) in the middle of the night.
First - the script needs to enable WOL feature on the mobo - this part has been solved - there is a nice tool from DELL to do this - and it works- with some limitations - (gx 270 and gx 150 need BIOS upgrade).
Second part - is to send the wake up frame , packet , magic packet etc. (whatever they call it) from within the batch file to all the PCs and wake them up .
I have done some research over the net and there are many stand alone WOL applications that can wake a single PC by having the PCs MAC address and/or IP address. I need a script/ tool for many PCs at a time that can start WITHIN the batch file after the Enable-- WOL- in- BIOS part is completed.
Since I am not a script guru please, be more specific with your directions.
Thanks
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Just a list of MAC addresses, one address per line, plain text format:
11-11-11-11-11-11
22-22-22-22-22-22
...
Forgot to mention that the script above is still in "test mode"; it will only display the wol command it would otherwise run. To run it for real, remove the capitalized "ECHO" in front of the exe call.
oBda :
>>Replace "wakeonlan.exe" with the command line application of your choice>>
I think here is my problem - most of the applications out there are GUI based and require user input.
I am trying to find a wol application that can be called/started from the batch and when it starts should not display any interface and/or require user input. Any suggestions of any tool that is capable of doing that??
While working on this one I stumbled upon another issue:
There is a check box in the Power Management tab at the NICs Advanced property window that enables/allows the NIC to bring up the computer out of stand by/sleep mode. Without this one being checked WOL will not work. It is unchecked by default .
I guess I will need another line or two in the batch file to be able to remotely check this box. ( Something to do with changing a registry value ?)
Since this is a related to my first question and yet, it complicates the task I am increasing the points .
Thank you.
Have you actually tried if that checkbox needs to be set? As far as I know, this only influences what the machine does when it's in standby mode due to the power settings. A machine that has been shut down/turned off should start (assuming it's enabled in the BIOS) independently of that setting.
It wouldn't help much in the script, anyway. This would have to happen before you run the script, while the machine is running, as you would have to wake the machine in order to change the setting ...
Thank you oBdA for your advice. It looks that this could be the solution I 've been looking for.
As you suggested I found the little tool WOLCMD.exe on the internet and it is doing fine job when I test it with ONE PC.
When I try to populate my MAClist.txt file with more MAC addresses to test it on multiple PCs I am getting that:
C:\Temp>wolcmd.exe 00188BB4a727
Wake On Lan Command Line...
Usage: wolcmd [mac address] [ipaddress] [subnet mask] [port number]
i.e. wolcmd 009027a322fc 195.188.159.20 255.255.255.0 7
or wolcmd 009027a322fc depicus.com 255.255.255.0 7
Copyright www.depicus.com (Brian Slack) 1966-2005
( As per the author of the tool, WOLCMD.exe does support waking up multiple PCs and can be run as a batch file - an exerpt from the help :
>>Running WOLCMD from a batch file
>>Simply add multiple entries thus:
>>wolcmd 009027a324fe 195.188.159.20 255.255.255.0 8900
>>wolcmd 009024a731da 212.86.64.31 255.255.255.0 8900
In my MAClist file I tried to use only MAC addresses one at each line , also tried the format WOLCMD suggests:
MAC ADDR IP ADDRESS SUBNET MASK PORT # - again - one line per each PC. Exa:
00188bb2ad4f 255.255.255.255 255.255.254.0 7
But no luck so far . Any suggestion of whatcould be wrong would be very much appreciated.
thank you
If the exe needs additional parameters, you need to change the for /f command a bit.
So if your Maclist has this format:
<mac> <ip> <subnet> <port>
you need four "tokens" from the file.
The for /f command will take these tokens and store them in the respective environment variables, starting with the one you specify (%%a):
@echo off
:: *** The file with the mac addresses to process:
set MacFile=C:\Temp\maclist.tx
for /f "tokens=1-4" %%a in ('type "%MacFile%"') do ECHO wolcmd.exe %%a %%b %%c %%d
(note that the ECHO is still in there, which will only display the generated commands).
"First - the script needs to enable WOL feature on the mobo - this part has been solved - there is a nice tool from DELL to do this - and it works- with some limitations - (gx 270 and gx 150 need BIOS upgrade)."
- I am looking to implement the same thing right now and was wondering what the name of the tool was (or where I could find it) that you used to enable WOL in the BIOS? I already have the tools to run against the machines to turn them on, but i don't want to have to physically hit roughly all 1000 workstations to enable this. Thanks!
As far as I remember the DELL utility was called OMCC or something of the sort.
The version back then was 6.x , now I see it is version 8.
I found info here:
http://support.dell.c
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: oBdAPosted on 2007-02-20 at 11:28:58ID: 18573147
Assuming you have a list of the MAC addresses to process, you can do that with a "for /f" command.
"for /f" will read a file line by line and put the words found in the lines into variables (enter "help for" in a command window for details).
So something like this should do the trick:
@echo off
:: *** The file with the mac addresses to process:
set MacFile=C:\Temp\maclist.tx
for /f %%a in ('type "%MacFile%"') do ECHO wakeonlan.exe %%a
Replace "wakeonlan.exe" with the command line application of your choice, and add other parameters, if necessary. Use "%%a" where you would normally put the machine's MAC address.
Check http://www.robvanderwoude.