Hello, I am an assistant tech. specialist at a high school we have about 500 macs and about 300 PCs. I am able to control and manage all my pcs through a separate server and domain I have built but we manage our macs with Remote Desktop 3 and through our mac server with LDAP and workgroup management. I was wondering how to go about power management for all the macs on the network. Basically turning on at a certain time and off at a certain time. Is there any good solution to this and are there any suggestions anyone has about management in general for maintenance? Thanks!
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School Management
- Thread starter punktilend
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You can use "pmset" and script it and setup an ARD task server to push it. Another thing to look at would be having an actual management system. Check out JAMF Casper.
I know that System prefs on a non server computer has to option to turn the computer on an off at certain times (on the macs), but m assuming you don't want to configure each device/image each device in the middle of a school year.
I actually really like Apple's setup at Apple stores. They use simple system prefs and a program called Deep Freeze by Faronics to restore the computer to the original state every time it restarts. May not be great if the kids keep their info on the computer and not their flash drives, but certainly helps with keeping the computers clean and running smoothly.
I actually really like Apple's setup at Apple stores. They use simple system prefs and a program called Deep Freeze by Faronics to restore the computer to the original state every time it restarts. May not be great if the kids keep their info on the computer and not their flash drives, but certainly helps with keeping the computers clean and running smoothly.
Assuming you've added the Macs to a computer group in Workgroup Manager, then goto that groups preferences, choose Energy Saver, click Schedule, then set accordingly.
The issue there of course, and what we run into all the time, is that students leave the computers on and in a lot of cases with an app open. It will not shut down using Energy Saver under those circumstances. We do use Deep Freeze, and we do have them go to deep sleep after a period to try to save a bit of power during the work week. On Friday we use ARD to shut them down hard. I'd like to see a script added at some point that will shut them down in the afternoon regardless of the fact apps are running. And if someone has one I would be greatly interested. "Cron, shut me down at 4pm every day please, and if there are apps running, kill them... but hey, put a 5 minute warning up first in case there are some industrious students working after school!"
Maybe split the job in 2 by first let one script log out any user by doing that applications will quit and them do a shutdown.
We have Deep Freeze on all of our Windows 7 labs. We tell it to shut down every day at 5 p.m. and it does so reliably. There is a 5 minute warning, even if no one is logged in the warning is displayed and the shut down can be cancelled. This DeepFreeze feature doesn't work on OS X?
When you say Mac Server, do you mean 'Mac OS X Server' ? If so, then Workgroup Manager (or Profile Manager in Lion Server) has management options for shutting down all your Macs automatically. It's in the 'Energy Saver' managed preferences
You know, that's a damned good question. Sometimes when you think you're leading the pack in school technology it's good to be humbled by such a simple question. LOL
I will be checking that Monday. And thanks for the humbling! I needed that to tell the truth.
(I am laughing my ass off right now, in shame.)
You know, that's a damned good question. Sometimes when you think you're leading the pack in school technology it's good to be humbled by such a simple question. LOL
I will be checking that Monday. And thanks for the humbling! I needed that to tell the truth.
(I am laughing my ass off right now, in shame.)
It's a scheduled task you have to set on the installer package, may require removing and reinstalling on the clients.