Managing clients from the server

Hello all,

I work in a mixed LAN of Solaris and Win2k machines. On our Unix
machines we have utilities that let us remotely shutdown all clients from a
server and copy files from a server to all clients. For instance, if we
update the hosts file we can send the updated file to all the Unix clients
without effecting what the user is doing or requiring a reboot. Plus when we
have a power problem we can send the Unix shutdown command to all the
machines and shut them all down quickly. Is there any way to perform these
functions on our Win2k clients. It is a pain to run from machine to machine
and log in and the domain admin and copy an updated file to each one. It is
almost as much trouble to run to each machine to shut them down.

Thanks, your help is appreciated.

Romeo Bartlett

Managing clients from the serverHi,

With some initial work, all of these should be possible on Windows network.

E.g. Windows XP and Windows 2003 have a command line option that will allow
you to shutdown or restart computers remotely. The tool is

shutdown /?

I never tested it on Windows 2000, but it works quite good for me on XP and
2003 computers.

Most of these things will only work if your clients don't have personal
firewall enabled.

Copying host file is also an options, again it would require a script that
would connect to the client (with appropriate permissions) and copy new
file(s) to the PCs.

Are these clients connected to active directory domain? It would provide
some additional options for your client management.

Feel free to post back if you have and additional questions...

--
Mike
Microsoft MVP - Windows Security

"Gilrhan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:BE09DE23.60C6%(E-Mail Removed)...
Hello all,

I work in a mixed LAN of Solaris and Win2k machines. On our Unix
machines we have utilities that let us remotely shutdown all clients from a
server and copy files from a server to all clients. For instance, if we
update the hosts file we can send the updated file to all the Unix clients
without effecting what the user is doing or requiring a reboot. Plus when we
have a power problem we can send the Unix shutdown command to all the
machines and shut them all down quickly. Is there any way to perform these
functions on our Win2k clients. It is a pain to run from machine to machine
and log in and the domain admin and copy an updated file to each one. It is
almost as much trouble to run to each machine to shut them down.

Thanks, your help is appreciated.

Romeo Bartlett