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Wake-on-LAN

Project ID: 
213
Current stage: 
Manager: 
Unit: 
What: 

Description: Implement a wake-on-LAN system

Deliverables: A wake-on-LAN system

Why: 

Customer: Anyone with a machine which might be put to sleep

Case statement: We've had a few queries now about wake-on-LAN, the implication being that folk would be happier to have their machines sleep if they could have a way to wake them up as needed.

When: 

Status: Delivered. The service can be found here.

Timescales: Putting together a cgi-bin script would probably only take a week or so. Testing and ironing out any platform- and machine-specific quirks might take another couple of weeks. There might be another week or so of Support effort to add the necessary entri

Priority: High priority.

Time:

How: 

Proposal:

Resources: The system would probably run on the network infrastructure machines, or perhaps the network services machines if that's easier, so no additional kit would be needed.

Plan: The netinf machines are on all the right subnets and already have "all" machines' MAC addresses through the dhcpd resources. The idea would be to provide a cgi-bin script which would look up the MAC address and call some piece of code (externally-sourced or locally-written) to send the magic packet.

To be accessible from outside, there would need to be cosign-protected https access to the cgi-bin. If this conflicted with the need to have simple http access to the netmon pages for DR purposes then the system might be better run on the network services machines than the network infrastructure machines, but that's something to determine at the time.

Alternatively, hook into the central IS-provided system. There are issues with configuration-data transfer and directed broadcasts which make this appear rather more expensive and less flexible than doing it ourselves.

Other: 

Dependencies: Given that not all machines sleep/wake properly, there might need to be some kind of (spanning-map based?) configuration by machine type. Since ?most self-managed machines don't currently have a machine-type entry in their profiles, for this to be done reliably could require some Support effort.

Risks:

Milestones

Proposed date Achieved date Name Description