How do I skip a computer in a batch file that is unreachable?

Question

@echo off
:begin
for /f %%a in (computerlist.txt) do (
  setlocal
  psexec \\%%a -u user -p password -i -d "d:\path\command.exe"
  endlocal
)

when the script is running, when it finds a machine to be unreachable I want it to skip it.

How do i write the script to skip an unreachable computer and continue to the next one in the txt file?

For what it's worth, if you don't care about the output of the command you're executing via `psexec`, then `wmic /node:%%a /user:user /password:password process call create "cmd /c \"d:\\path\\command.exe\""` will work faster than `psexec`. — rojo, Feb 13 '13 at 01:49

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '13 at 01:28

0

How about a simple test to see whether a machine is pingable?

@echo off
setlocal
:begin
for /f %%a in (computerlist.txt) do (
    ping -n 1 %%a >NUL 2>NUL
    if %errorlevel%==0 (
        psexec \\%%a -u user -p password -i -d "d:\path\command.exe"
    ) else echo Skipping unreachable host %%a
)
endlocal

answered Feb 13 '13 at 01:28

rojo

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This is a brilliant answer! Thank you! – Dre_Dre Oct 18 '13 at 20:24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 02 '14 at 08:00

Actually, windows ping.exe doesn't return meaningful errorlevels, (huh?)
It ALWAYS returns a "0" errorlevel, unless the IP-Protocol stack itself is hosed.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IS: pipe the output of your ping to a txt-file, and "find" for TTL=
ie

ping 10.10.10.10. >pingtest.txt
findstr /C:"TTL=" pingtest.txt >nul
if %ERRORLEVEL% equ 0 (do whatever) else (echo skipping unreachable host "whatever")

Then use Find.exe or Findstr.exe to look for TTL= in your output file
(note find, and findstr both use "0" errorlevel when they "find" what your searched on)
1. Ping can fail for a whole lot of reasons, but "TTL=" is always part of a successful ping
2. I always ping at least -n 3 times, because occasionally the first one or two might have problems, and I want to give it more possible chances to succeed before I skip it.
3. For this to work, you have to use the FOR loop method above, just raw psexec.exe has not current means to test/skip targets called from a text file.
4. If you need to use network resource in your psexec session then you need to run the "-h" option so that you get the elevated token, which allows you to map drives

I HOPE THIS HELPS !

How do I skip a computer in a batch file that is unreachable?

2 Answers2