How do you get a remote Sun to reboot itself

[Trevor Wright]

The Scenario: a Sun-3/280 server with an Exabyte video tape unit aboard
acts as the central backup machine for 25+ Suns. It runs a program which
automates the backup for level 5,3 and 0's. For 3's and 5's no reboot of
the remote systems are necessary, but for a 0 Sun recommend you reboot the
system.

The problem is that in order to do this from the central system you need to
issue a "rsh <machine name> /etc/reboot" or similar.

The Question: How do you sensibly reboot the far machine so that you do
not hang yourself until it is rebooted, and do not generate vast numbers
of processes (which eventually overflow the max number allowed)

I'm interested in replies from those who have a solution (tried and
tested) and not just well intentioned suggestions "which should work" as
we've tried all of those ourselves. Sun UK dont know and referred back to
the US who I guess have not replied to the UK yet.

Trevor Wright/GEC-Marconi Research/Chelmsford UK
yc23%a.gec-mrc.co.uk at nfs-relay.ac.uk (formerly nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk)