xWOL2: Wake On Lan Plugin plus Network Monitoring!! NEW

[defrag]

Yep totally agree Marbles, Magic Packet is the ONLY way to do this correctly. I think the only difference we have is that I set the server to shut down (sleep) after 20 mins activity which is accomplished in the power management settings.

I like the use of the poweroff service - nice touch

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Another ghost post??? stop playing with weegee board

[Marbles_00]

Defrag wrote,

Yep totally agree Marbles, Magic Packet is the ONLY way to do this correctly. I think the only difference we have is that I set the server to shut down (sleep) after 20 mins activity which is accomplished in the power management settings.

I like the use of the poweroff service - nice touch

Gees, something on this board doesn't like you...two ghost post in one thread.

You know what it seems like, is that at the end of the page, your post is dropped. It happened at the end of the first page, now it happened again at the end of the second page.

[defrag]

Looks like it happens on the last post before it adds a new page!

EDIT: READ MARBLES POST IN FULL BEFORE STATING WHAT HAS JUST BEEN SAID

STRIKE 2!

[tswhite70]

Defrag - love the plugin, I think it's a great addition but I'm having some trouble with it. It seems the Status reporting is intermitent or at least not working the way that I would like.

I would prefer that my system not constantly monitor the Wake status, so I disabled the Status monitoring. I set up my WOL overlay to enable status monitoring whenever I enter the screen and disable it when I exit. I also set the monitoring frequency down to 5 seconds, so that when enabled it would quickly pick up the status of my systems. And when I Wake a system, I don't have to wait a long time to see that it's online - at most about 10 secs (5 for the system to wake, and 5 for the plugin to see it).

But it's not working, or at least intermittently not working, I can't quite figure out whats going on. I can go into the config for the plugin and ping a system and it reports correctly that the system is offline. However the screen variables never get updated, even if I Force Status Refresh with the plugin. If I restart XL it will correctly report the status. Then I'll wake the system using either xWOL or DepicusWOL, tell xWOL to start monitoring again and force a status refresh over and over and it will never report that the system is back online. Sometimes I can get the status to refresh properly once or twice as I cycle power states on the remote systems but at some point it stops working. I thought it might have to do with name lookups so I added host entries for the systems, but that has not made a difference. Is the monitoring using single pings, does it cache ip's or does it ping via name each time? Any ideas? Can you try reducing the monitoring freq on your setup, or disabling/enabling monitoring mulitple times and see if you have any issues?

It would also be great if the plugin had an option to fire a one time monitoring event, ie Check All Systems Now. That way this event could be fired on screen enter or via button, regardless of whether monitoring was enabled or disabled or what the frequency was set to. Tie that internally with a Force Status Refresh (which I assume is an Xlobby.invalidate()) after the monitoring event has checked all systems.

Thanks - can't wait to get this working on my setup!
tsw

[defrag]

Hi tsw!

I have noticed that the status gets out of sync, something that was on my list of things to do (which is getting pretty big now!!)

The monitoring is simply a ping in turn to each machine done on a seperate thread (which maybe the issue with the screen refresh - as I've noticed this happen with other plugins that use seperate threads than the one xlobby runs in like xoapweather) The actual ping is by name - no reason this could not be by IP (can't remember why I chose name). No caching is involved - new ping each time.

I'll have a think about the other options - but I will take a look at your specific issue tomorrow.

Cheers

defrag

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Reading other thread where Marb was buzzing about Xreceive gave me a little idea... mayby this plugin could also find xlobby hosts in subnet, and mark them as such to host database with boolean atribute... u could achieve looking by trying to connect default Xnet, Xreceive or even Pervhub ports.

After they been spotted and marked... it might be possible for example send same xreceive command to all hosts at once, or do something else neat.

[defrag]

Interesting....

I like the idea of scanning for xlobby hosts and mass messaging

Although are you going to be sniffing for xnet ports whilst driving the p3rvette??

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Although are you going to be sniffing for xnet ports whilst driving the p3rvette??

I certainly plan to integrate some war driving aplication at later stage of the project.

EDIT: but lets use term reconnaissance rather... otherwise dumb cops might book me for DUI.

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

mayby this plugin could also find xlobby hosts in subnet,

Now that im thinking more, mayby it could identify UPnP (DLNA) mediaservers too as such, since it appears many people have these within Xlobby network. Im personally not too familiar with UPnP but i wouldnt suppose this would be any mission impossible either.

Although quickly i cant imagine much use for this function beyond "nice to know"...

[dalanik]

I just installed XWOL yesterday and I must say I'm impressed! I made pictures of NASes so it is showing which movies are on which NAS and whether NASes are ON. Soo much more easier for wife and kids to find out which NAS to turn on



Thanx, great plugin!!!!

D.

[scottw]

DUDE....that looks SWEEEET. I love the pics of the NAS'

Nice job.

[defrag]

Thanks for sharing that dalanik and thanks for the compliment. Great to see it in use in such a creative way - great work too.

[lar282]

Defrag, any chance of releasing the sourcecode? I am trying to implement wol in the MP Tv plugin to wake up the server when necassary and I could really use your help.


//Lasse
lasse10@telia.com

[defrag]

Lasse,

The reason I do not release source code is becuase all my plugins are always in development and I like to keep control of the flow of that development, mainly becuase I enjoy producing them.

I work in the software industry and I know what happens when control is lost over code, the original author usually bears the brunt of supporting other peoples interpretation of the code and helping out with coding queries - neither I have the time to do - this is not finger pointing it is a generic statement. If I ever ever ever get to the stage where I am unable to continue supporting them then I will be happy to release.

Remember too that these are done in .Net so the code is managed as opposed to being binary like C++ - it doesn't take much to decompile a .Net dll or exe to view how things work, this isn't cheating, it's how .Net works.

Having said all that, the core part of the plugin which does the wake and ping was based on code from msdn and googled examples. Check your mail for a snippet.