WOL and reporting whether a machine actually is available

[stephan]

With the network module I can now send a WOL package and successfully start systems in my house.

 

What would really be awesome is if I could also check whether my systems are turned on / active through the ISY.

 

Various ways to do this come to mind but of course I am limited by what the ISY can do

* ping to an IP address and report as part of a program status

* Network GET request if that system has a web server available, which most have these days. Then ask for whether I got a 200 and return this as part of a program status

* other ideas ?

 

Then I could create one program per system I wanna see and would be able to see this through the web interface, or mobilinc, or even my own web interface with a little JS that accesses the REST interface from the ISY

 

Can anyone think of a way to do this today ?

 

Stephan

[Xathros]

Hi Stephan-

 

Looking at the problem from the other side, how about issuing a wget with a /Rest command to set a variable in the ISY called from a startup script on the system in question. You could also schedule that wget for every 15 mins or so and program up a watchdog timer in the ISY to alert on failure.

 

 

-Xathros

[stephan]

interesting idea. This would work for instance for PCs that have that capability. Other devices with a more limited set of capabilities such as my Denon A/V Receiver which has a built in web interface wouldn't work.

 

Thanks for the idea, it definitely provide a partial solution for my WOL "problem" as I wanna see when my server is fully available to rock.

 

Stephan

[Xathros]

Since we have no way to evaluate responses to network commands from the ISY, we have no way to test such devices. You could use an external server and script up a ping test for those devices then /rest the results of the tests to ISY variables. I use a $20 pogoplug running linux to do this sort of thing among others.

 

-or-

 

If you have switched power on the receiver, you could power a relay and use an IOLinc, TriggerLinc or EzIO to detect the relay status and send Insteon messages to the ISY instead. Or possibly even just plug in a lamp module and query it for responding/not responding though you may have comm issues going through your A/V gear.

 

-Xathros