Notifying Users About Downed Servers
Articles and Tips: qna
01 Jun 2003
Q.
Occasionally I have severe network issues that cause me to need to down one or more network servers. Is there an easy way to get the word out to all logged-in users when an issue like this occurs?
Wanda "The Word" Winchester
A.
Dear Wanda: If you ever get the call that something terrible is going to happen (like bombing in war time) or that an emergency condition exists (like a fire in your building), your main duty as a system administrator is to tell everybody who is logged in to the server to save their data and evacuate. You won't have time to call every user who is logged in and instruct them to log out, shut down the node, and run away.
In answer to your question, a quick and reliable way to get the word out to your NetWare server users is to use a broadcast message. From the Novell server, you type the command "broadcast everybody" after the message you want to send. It will flash on those nodes that are logged in to the server, so users will know to log out from the server to save their valuable data.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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