Convert MAC to hex howto

[Johannes Graumann]

Dear all,

I'm trying to convert
	'00:08:9b:ce:f5:d4'
to 
	'\x00\x08\x9b\xce\xf5\xd4'
for use in magic packet construction for WakeOnLan like so:
	wolsocket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
       	wolsocket.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
	wolsocket.sendto('\xff'*6 + '\x00\x08\x9b\xce\xf5\xd4'*16,
	 (expectedlanbroadcast, 80))

This is what I came up whith, but I remain puzzled on how to preserver the 
leading '\h' ... thanks for any hint

expectedservermac = '00:08:9b:ce:f5:d4'
hexcall = str.split(expectedservermac,":")
hexcall.insert(0,'')
hexcall = "\\x".join(hexcall).decode('string_escape')

Thanks for any pointers.

Sincerely, Joh