shutdown from sleep mode?

[rcunderw]

Hi all:
Please excuse the lengthy first post. I hope some of you might find the following to be an interesting problem. Thank you for taking the time to read it!


I'm working with a team on an autonomous, solar-powered kiosk to be deployed at a local wilderness trail. We're using an Intel Mac Mini with a touchscreen and wifi access. The current issue I'm handling is how to auto-shutdown the computer at the end of the day to conserve power, and then to auto-boot in the morning. The problem is, the machine will be in sleep mode at the time it needs to shutdown.

I understand that shutdown from sleep mode would be an unsafe and probably unsupported option. Also, I'm limited by Energy Saver allowing for only a pair of (wake/boot, shutdown) settings at a given time.

We'd like to avoid sleeping the Mini all night, so I've come up with a possible solution to replace the 'com.apple.AutoWake.plist' file at two times during the day:
0.) Computer is initially asleep after a long day of activity in the sun.
1.) Computer wakes up at [8:00pm].
2.) Replace the current 'com.apple.AutoWake.plist' settings with wake/bootup=[8:00am] and shutdown=[8:10pm].
3.) Computer shuts down at [8:10pm].
4.) Computer boots at [8:00am].
5.) Replace the current 'com.apple.AutoWake.plist' settings with wake/bootup=[8:00pm] and shutdown=[8:10pm].
6.) Normal daytime operation. Computer sleeps after 5 min. inactivity.
7.) Repeat.


I assume I can use 'pmset' to set Energy Saver settings instead of just plain replacing .plist files.

I would greatly appreciate any input you guys might have on this. Any other solutions available? Or is this a viable solution? I need something repeatable and reliable. Thanks again!

-rcunderw