are you a programmer?

[YouTube]

The security company where I work has asked me to develop a tool that can gather information from several hundred computers running Windows XP Professional. The tool needs to verify whether a computer is left running at certain hours in the evening. because the management request all computers be turned off no later than 6.00pm

i need to tell my supervisor the programming language I would use to develop this tool and the method of verifying the request...

Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[FoBoT]

i would write a tiny program that hits a url on a web server every fifteen minutes and then just parse the web logs to determine what machines hit it when they are supposed to be off

install the program on all the target machines

 

[DaveSimmons]

You might look at desktop management applications from Altiris, Microsoft, etc. since they can do other things like "push out" software updates to all of the PCs at once.

They cost, but they don't cost developer time to write from scratch. The extra features might also reduce time for other management tasks like software installs.

Edit: FoBot's suggestion would be easy to write with the Internet Transfer Control in VB or the Wininet library for VIsual C++. Just do a HTTP GET to a static web page.

If your PCs have dynamic IPs you'll need some way to map them though, maybe by running a log script page on the server instead of a static page, and having each PC do the GET with an ID ( ...url...?myid=pc10234 ).

 

[Reel]

Why not use readily available tools such as NetBIOS or networking tools and just do it in a simple scripting language? These are company-controlled systems with known firewall parameters and configurations so it shouldn't be a problem to determine if it will respond to a ping.

 

[YouTube]

Thanks, you guys got some pretty neat suggestions!

i am not familiar with programming but it seems like my supervisor want me to write a mall program.... like what FoBoT said, what kind of language would you recommend?

 

[puffff]

If your company assigns static IPs to all its computers, you could just ping each machine at the specified time and see which ones respond. This could be simpler in that you don't need to go around and install something at each desktop.

 

[YouTube]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
You might look at desktop management applications from Altiris, Microsoft, etc. since they can do other things like "push out" software updates to all of the PCs at once.

They cost, but they don't cost developer time to write from scratch. The extra features might also reduce time for other management tasks like software installs.

Edit: FoBot's suggestion would be easy to write with the Internet Transfer Control in VB or the Wininet library for VIsual C++. Just do a HTTP GET to a static web page.

If your PCs have dynamic IPs you'll need some way to map them though, maybe by running a log script page on the server instead of a static page, and having each PC do the GET with an ID ( ...url...?myid=pc10234 ).

Thanks... i'll try C++

is this syntax correct??

for (computerid=0; computerid<totalcomputerid; computerid++)
{
record(computerid);
}

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: YouTube
Thanks, you guys got some pretty neat suggestions!

i am not familiar with programming but it seems like my supervisor want me to write a mall program.... like what FoBoT said, what kind of language would you recommend?

You won't need to write anything.

Install Apache (or equivalent web server - Apache is free)
Configure a scheduled task to run after 6:00pm on every machine using the iexplore.exe executable with a parameter that points to the machine where you installed Apache. Check the access logs to see which machines have hit the webserver.

 

[Alphathree33]

Exactly what position do you hold where you're "not familiar with programming" and are asked to write and deploy software to hundreds of computers?

 

[Alphathree33]

Originally posted by: YouTube

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
You might look at desktop management applications from Altiris, Microsoft, etc. since they can do other things like "push out" software updates to all of the PCs at once.

They cost, but they don't cost developer time to write from scratch. The extra features might also reduce time for other management tasks like software installs.

Edit: FoBot's suggestion would be easy to write with the Internet Transfer Control in VB or the Wininet library for VIsual C++. Just do a HTTP GET to a static web page.

If your PCs have dynamic IPs you'll need some way to map them though, maybe by running a log script page on the server instead of a static page, and having each PC do the GET with an ID ( ...url...?myid=pc10234 ).

Thanks... i'll try C++

is this syntax correct??

for (computerid=0; computerid<totalcomputerid; computerid++)
{
record(computerid);
}

Yes -- just copy that exact code into VC++ and compile it to an executable and deploy it to all of the computers. Everything will work like magic.

P.S. You completely missed DaveSimmons' point. He was suggesting that you have each computer that you want to track automatically call up a web page on a central server at 6pm each day.

Then you just check the server logs and see who the culprits are.

This wouldn't require any iteration over computer IDs. It would require iteration through the server logs, either manually or automatically.

 

[YouTube]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Originally posted by: YouTube

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
You might look at desktop management applications from Altiris, Microsoft, etc. since they can do other things like "push out" software updates to all of the PCs at once.

They cost, but they don't cost developer time to write from scratch. The extra features might also reduce time for other management tasks like software installs.

Edit: FoBot's suggestion would be easy to write with the Internet Transfer Control in VB or the Wininet library for VIsual C++. Just do a HTTP GET to a static web page.

If your PCs have dynamic IPs you'll need some way to map them though, maybe by running a log script page on the server instead of a static page, and having each PC do the GET with an ID ( ...url...?myid=pc10234 ).

Thanks... i'll try C++

is this syntax correct??

for (computerid=0; computerid<totalcomputerid; computerid++)
{
record(computerid);
}

Yes -- just copy that exact code into VC++ and compile it to an executable and deploy it to all of the computers. Everything will work like magic.

:|

 

[DarkThinker]

Originally posted by: puffff
If your company assigns static IPs to all its computers, you could just ping each machine at the specified time and see which ones respond. This could be simpler in that you don't need to go around and install something at each desktop.

That was what I was going to suggest, it is extremley easy to write a script that would ping the addresses (or hostnames that way no need for static ips) and parse for specific responses then log the data into a nicely formatted text file.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: Reel
Why not use readily available tools such as NetBIOS or networking tools and just do it in a simple scripting language? These are company-controlled systems with known firewall parameters and configurations so it shouldn't be a problem to determine if it will respond to a ping.

^ that one

 

[talyn00]

so no one works late?