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Question

Powering on Macs Remotely

  • April 13, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 36 views
A
  • Anonymous

All,

While I have been working with my PC counterparts at the college, we discussed something I have yet to attempt or know If it can be done on a Mac. This is, powering on a Mac over the local network. Does anyone know if this is possible? This is important especially if updates or images are needing to be sent to labs and there is no one available to turn on the Macs.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks everyone!

Mick

    4 replies

    H
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    • henkelb
    • New Contributor
    • April 13, 2011

    Short answer is nope. Macs cannot be power up from an off state over the network. They can be woken up from sleep over the network.

    Bill Henkel
    Computer Technician
    Telephone Support Specialist
    henkelb at westerntc.edu<mailto:henkelb at westerntc.edu>
    608-789-6254
    fax: 608-785-9287

    A
    • Anonymous
    • April 13, 2011

    As Bill said, you can't remotely turn on a powered down Mac (except for the
    later model Xserves), but you can schedule a time when they're automatically
    powered on using the Energy Saver preference pane (i.e. weekdays at 7:00
    AM).

    Brandt

    J. Brandt Buckley
    Systems Integration Engineer
    CRBS

    brandt at ncmir.ucsd.edu http://crbs.ucsd.edu
    P: +1 858 822 0743 F: +1 858 524 7497

    Center for Research in Biological Systems
    University of California, San Diego

    Holly & Calit2

    9500 Gilman Drive
    Basic Science Building #1000
    La Jolla, CA 92093-0608

    J
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    • Janowski
    • Contributor
    • April 13, 2011

    I suppose you could use energy saver settings to always turn machines on, say Friday nights at 7pm though.
    Then schedule your updates for that night.

    As Bill said though, you cannot 'on the fly' remotely power on a mac as needed. Even LOM on our Xserves has been very unreliable typically.

    ben janowski
    Senior Macintosh Support Technician
    Kohl's Mac Support Team
    262.703.1396 | benjamin.janowski at kohls.com

    E
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    • ernstcs
    • Contributor
    • April 14, 2011

    It is possible if you're allowed to broadcast across subnets, but that's typically not the case.

    Options exist for using other products of course. There are some options in Apple Remote Desktop.

    The system we use here I believe has a Mac client now, but haven't deployed it yet, E1 Nightwatchman. It always leaves one computer on per subnet that's used to wake up the rest in the subnet, or specific boxes. If that one box is shutdown, the client is suppose to wake up another box in the subnet first so you always have a controller in that area.

    I tell you what though…it sure has been far less of a pain in the ass to not sleep or shutdown Macs for me, I can tell you that much. However, I will likely look at using this client over this summer so we can squeeze out a little more energy savings.

    <insert spance of time here>

    I've read a few replies since I started typing. It may be the case that a system can't be woken from a powered off state, but I haven't heard that. I know that we hibernate/sleep systems with Nightwatchman, not totally power off.

    Craig E

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