Net Power Server

Net Power will allow your Server to send commands to the attached PC's to power them down at a particular time Ever looked around at your office at night, to the hum of desktop pc's still whirring away with nobody at them?

It costs money to leave these PC's running, and consumes energy that we really can't afford to waste.

Net Power is a simple utility that will allow your Server to send commands to the attached PC's to power them down at a particular time.

Each Client runs a small exe, a service which is also available, and will check that the PC isn't busy and then power down.

You can also use the WOL facility of your PC to have the Server power it back up in the morning!

Net Power comes in two parts :

Server : This is the main control program that will run on a PC that is always on (like your server)

Client : Runs on every machine you want to have turned off at night

By using UDP communications, the two applications can talk to each other, without knowing the IP of either machine.

This should make distribution, and installation an easy task. However even if the parameters need to be changed, they are stored in a very simple INI file that can be distributed as needed.

The default UDP port used is 12345 (hey same number as on my luggage!) but is easy to change. In order to use the WOL facility you BIOS and network card must have this feature, and it must be enabled.

Limitations: