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Hello,

Wondering what the best way to be notified or check when a device hasn’t pinged the network for so many X days.

This could be a simple scheduled task that runs every time a device is unlocked or logged into.

ping %COMPUTERNAME% > \share%COMPUTERNAME%.txt

And a simple ‘date modified’ sort will tell me the last time this device was pinged. But it would need to be successful.

WHAT could I do for iPads - this may require the DHCP server and MAC addresses?

OR is there a better way altogether.

Just trying to track down devices that fall off the radar before they’re lost for good.

Thank you,

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Perhaps for clarity you could add why you want this, is there a reason you need to know how long ago a device was on the network?

You could look at enrolling devices in to Intune or similar, this way you see all of the above as well as inventory of the software, users of the device etc. This will include iPads if you enroll them,

There are also other inventory systems out there specific for Windows which will cover those.

Vendors > Action1 is patch management but will also show when devices were last online, what they have installed, if they are compliant with updates etc. Plus it’s free for the first 200 devices.

Windows and macOS at the moment are supported.

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If you’re a mostly Windows AD shop and have Intune licenses, you can use it as your MDM for the iPads and it’ll tell you when they’re out of compliance…

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If you have Intune, go to Devices, All Devices. There is a “Last check-in” column and you can sort by that column. That will allow you to see which devices have been offline and for how long.

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Also if you have AzureAD/Entra ID, you can go into devices there and there is a sortable Activity column that will also tell you when it was last online.

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Thanks for the shoutout Rod (And your continued support)

Yes Action1 would definitely do this provided the systems can run an agent, if not then I would suggest PingPlotter (or smokeping for free)

Action1 is a patch management solution, and while it will add excellent utility to any network, as well as “Last Seen & On/Off line” if any of these devices are not agent capable, (Switches, routers, printers, etc) then ICMP probes are likely best route to track up/down on tight budgets.

While not the best use of Action1, it CAN do this by pinging un-agented systems, I could even share a datasource to get last ping results into a Action1 report (Therefore alertable). IT is just a basic test, you may want to augment with like must have failed three successive pings or whatnot. If anyone wants it just let me know.

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One would hope they would discover that it is a fantastic patch managent tool once installed. The only issue is see here is that I wouldn’t work for iPads.

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@Rod-IT if a computer goes ‘offline’ at a school or business, it usually means said device is broken/stolen/not being put on charge.

If I can be alerted after 1-2 days of inactivity - I can let that department know that they have a missing device.

I will need to look at intune.

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That may be true at the places you work, but where I am, if a device (especially end user) is offline, this could mean the user it on leave/sick, not that there is an error, it could also mean there are network issues if multiple machines are offline.

You can prevent some of these like ‘stolen’ by using Kensington locks or case cages to lock the devices in.

I’ve listed systems that should do what you want, but I’m not convinced your reasons would always be accurate.

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I am hoping I can create a script that will ping all device IP’s, lets say 100 iPads that have reserved IP’s

The script will ping each IP, and will create a text file only if a result is unsuccessful.

Something as simple as this. Currently working on this, will let you know how I go.

As MDM’s are internet based, last activity can be anywhere (currently Mosyle)
If I can ping the devices on the network I will know that they’re still here. If ping results are constantly negative over 1-2 days, I can alert the area to look for the device, or I can.

This is just another way to help me more than anything.

The devices do go back to trolleys etc, but sometimes they don’t always, this is why I want to set this up. Instead of walking around the school (it is a school) and manually checking each trolley / device, which I still do! This is another tool that will aid me.

Before you ask, the trolleys are labelled and have how many devices there should be are on that label. We just constantly have missing / misplaced devices.

I will let you know how I go.

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The answer is no, because iPad IOS does not respond to ping requests anyway.

Is there anything you can use in the AP controller to detect their location or if they are on?

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iPads respond to Ping - did one just now. CMD > ping - worked fine.

Will let you know how I go with this.

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All I really want is a method of scanning every IP of every iPad in the school, and I get a text file for any that error - this will run everyday from the server. %Time% - %IP%.txt etc.

If I get constant errors for the same devices, I will know that they are not in there trolleys being charged. I can then cross reference this to the MDM activity.

A quick search on Google, I see that this is possible, but with some very elabotrate scripts!

If the script can refence a list of IP’s, I can remove the IP’s that are no longer in action.

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Ok

This is getting closer ^

A list of IP’s - success or fail.

The only issue with the method above, I would have to remember which ones were constantly failing. i.e. some might just be off, or the wireless could be off.

I would have to run the file each day for a week, export to a new file, Monday_Results, Tuesday_Results, Wed.. etc, then manually line up the columns, if it is 5 red, I will know the at device hasn’t logged or been used in the school for a week.

Or get the file to continuously run, down seperate columns each time. Just thinking out loud.

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