WOL troubles

[HtV]

I can wake up my server from within my router: I telnet into the router and there I can enter the macadress from the system I want to wake, and it wakes up. I have constructed a webpage for that on my homepage, from there I telnet etc.
I tried other programs but afaik my router or modem won't let the wol-packages through (something like that). The above routine always worked fine(don't use it much).
I was on holiday the last few weeks and wanted to impress the lady by adding a (forgotten) recording I went into an internet-cafe and went to my homepage (so far so good) but then I found out that telnet wouldn't work, it opened a dosbox ok, but I couldn't do anything. I guess they had shut down the telnet ports, understandable. Luckily I was there at 16.30 and I knew my system would wake up at 17.00 for epg-update, so everything went smooth eventually.
I would like to see some idea's on howto bypass this.

tia Hans

[martint123]

AFAIK, WOL is a packet that is sent just to a MAC address. So there's no obvious way to send one from a different network.
If your router can send a WOL packet then it may have the ability to send a WOL packet on receipt of a TCP/IP packet on a specific port.

I cheat when I go away and hang an old dialup modem onto the serial port - and set the PC up to wakeup after something like 20 rings.

Martin

[HtV]

Yes, I think WOL is the mac-adress sent to the system 16 times in a row.
That's what my router does, I type (telnet) in the mac adress and the router sends it 16 x to the system. There is no possibility for that in the web-config from the router.
Maybe I should try to figure out howto do it with my cellphone.

thanks anyway,
Hans

[mvallevand]

If you could configure your router as a VPN endpoint I think you could do it. Then if you connect via a VPN it would be like you were on the local LAN. Otherwise I don't think the WOL packets are going to be routed.

Martin

[HtV]

Ok thanks Martin, this might be a good reason to do some studying in vpn and stuff, I never dealt with that. I'll see what I can come up with.

Thanks,
cya Hans

[BobBuilder]

The issue is that most low cost routers dont forward packets for broadcast address's.

I used to have a dlink that allow me to port forward UDP packets to X.X.X.255 (255 is broadcast address).
I then used any WOL app to send standard WOL packets to my router with the mac address of the machine I wanted to wake to a certain port that was forwarded to the broadcast address, I even set up a simple web page to do this for me, in fact I posted that web site on this forum. This is the best method as it means you dont have to log into your router via telnet or vpn, everything can be done by standard http pages running simple scripts.
The problem with this method is as I say that most low cost routers for some reason dont support port forwarding to broadcast address's.

Unfortunalty I then upgraded the router firmware and discovered that the updated interface no longer allowed me to set 255 as an address, I complained to DLINK but didnt get much help.

The way I fixed this was to buy a new router that supported dd-wrt.
dd-wrt is an open source firmware replacement for a whole set of routers based around a certain chipset.

dd-wrt is great, it supports a good WOL interface via URL, it may even forward UDP packets to a broadcast address like the old dlink used to I havent tried this yet even though its my prefered method.

dd-wrt supports openvpn which is great for having secure access to you home lan, so I use this as martin suggests to connect to the router then use the routers web config to wake the machines.
You can use web config over the net to log into the router but I couldnt get it to work correctly with https, it works fine with http so you could leave it at that if you dont mind sending your routers password via clear text.
I like the VPN method as it allows me to wake the machines then remote access or VNC over a secure connection.
The downside to this method is that you need to install openvpn on the external machine so its not handy for access from any location, but I can live with this for the moment as I take my laptop most places.

The router I used is the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with a netgear adsl modem. This system runs dd-wrt and I can definatly recommend it.

I have played with WOL a lot and have it set up on both my pvr and my main machine, and can remote access (VNC / remote desktop / wake from standby) flawlessly.

If I wanted to move to a method that worked from any machine I would spend some time getting https access setup to the router (which dd-wrt does support) or I would look at port forwarding to a broadcast address which I havent looked at yet with dd-wrt, but to be honest dd-wrt is very good so Id be surprised if you couldnt get that to work.

Hope this rather long winded post is helpfull

Thanks

Bob

[martint123]

The trouble with a VPN is being able to use one from a cyber cafe or wherever you happen to be. When I did some searching, I noticed at least one router when you could put a WOL MAC address into the router via the web management interface.

There maybe some info on "wake on lan over the internet" at http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/what-...n-lan.aspx

Martin

[BobBuilder]

I just updated my preveous post to cover the vpn issue, dd-wrt is well worth a look as it will give the cyber cafe solution as well as the VPN if set up correctly.

dd-wrt gives you a whole bunch of features you just wont get on any reasonbly priced domestic router. (WOL via web interface being one of them)

Bob

[HtV]

I have it working quite well, the only problem sofar was when I tried to do it from a cyber-cafe. They probably had shut down the telnet ports.
It's not that important that I would buy a new router for it. I'm very happy with the one I have. I might ask the Draytek support if they have any good ideas, they have been quite helpful in the past.

cya Hans

[offrotor]

I spent countless hours getting WOL to work. I have it All down now! But the easyest (and fastest way) to do it for me is to use "JWakeMe" java app. for my cell phone. Found here.

New routers (Dlink for sure, at least the one I have) dont use 255 as the broadcast, like my old linksys did. This does'nt mean the router does'nt have a broadcast ip. you can determine your broadcast ip using a subnet calculator. here. By changing your subnet mask, you can then deterimin where or what your broadcast will be. For example, subnet mask of : 255.255.255.248 would leave you with a broadcast ip of: 192.168.1.159.

I dont know much about telnet, But what will work for waking your PC's using this.
this will work in ANY Cafe'. Port 9 is standard for the Magic packets to be sent on.

I have 4 PC's I use WOL for
Main PC
PVR
CADD
CarPC

they all wake up fine for me from ANYWHERE, even from my CarPC web browser to home. Within, of Outside of my network. Or My cell phone from 1000 Km away! I love it. Its nice I dont have to carry a USB stick with stuff on it!

All this Helps if you have a static IP. If not you can sign up at DynDns.com instructions there to read...

With in my network I have GUI I use to wake each other up. you can find that here.

Hope this helps, and Not make it all more confusing?!