7 ms·

Using Wake on LAN (WOL) Across the Internet (2010)

43 points by invpt 3y ago

anilr 3y ago
Is Wake on Lan still actively used? I created WOL software, but didn't do a good job of maintaining it. :|
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  I almost exclusively boot my desktop via WoL, either by running the command from a laptop or hitting a button on my phone (homescreen shortcut -> termux script -> ssh to router -> send WoL to desktop).
- myself248 3y ago
  I use it to wake my NAS a few minutes before a backup job. I've also built a reset-on-LAN card using an old wake-on-LAN-capable NIC and some simple circuitry to shape the pulse so it's suitable for the motherboard's reset signal. I send a WOL packet to the otherwise-unused address, and kapow, the presumably-wedged machine is no longer wedged! Writeup here: https://www.i3detroit.org/reset-on-lan-an-ethernet-aware-remote-reboot-device-from-junkbox-parts/ https://www.i3detroit.org/reset-on-lan-an-ethernet-aware-rem...
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Very clever! I suppose the modern take would be one of the MCUs with Wifi (ESP8266-like) wire that to the power signal on a PC.
    - MayeulC 3y ago
      interesting, one could probably power it from the motherboard itself pretty easily, too! One of the pins of the power switch is probably 5V (though possibly high impedance if a pull-up is used, so not much power). But I think I'll rather look into one of these Pi-based "ilo" with HDMI in and USB gadget support to get remote access to the BIOS as well. It may also be useful for remotely debugging computers of family members :)
      - myself248 3y ago
        Yes, it is powered from the motherboard. The mobo's WOL header, if present, contains +5VSB, wake, and ground. It's intended to power the NIC since the motherboard's slots aren't powered when the machine is off. (At least, ISA slots weren't, and PCI added standby power in a later revision.) Or, you can just tap the +5VSB line from the ATX wiring directly. It's the same as on the WOL header. USB-equipped boards tend to power the USB ports from standby too, to support USB wake events, whether from keyboards, modems, or whatever. Plenty of options. If I were doing it again, yeah, I might use an ESP chip. That would give me power, reset, and serial, and I can always enable a serial console in my OS. I wonder if the ESP32's camera peripheral could read HDMI...
- beardog 3y ago
  It is useful for IT staff especially on big properties or when working remote since we don't have to wait for a user to wake up a machine for us or go there ourselves, as long as one on the lan is reachable. I did this in 2022.
- planede 3y ago
  I use it for my desktop computer from my laptop. I also use sunshine/moonlight to stream games in the living room, and moonlight also supports waking the PC up, so apparently there is demand for the feature.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  I have a VPN between my home and work networks and I often leave my desktop in stand-by, so when I want to use my desktop for something, I SSH into one of my home servers and send a WOL packet to wake it up.
neilv 3y ago
An alternative with simpler networking is to to rig up a little Web server on your home OpenWrt router, listening on the WAN interface. When the URL is requested (with authentication of some kind), it runs `etherwake` with the hardcoded MAC address and the hardcoded interface (e.g., `eth1.1`). Then your UI to wake up your machine, from anywhere in the world, would be to access that URL via a Web browser or `curl` script. For accessing the machine once it's awakened, probably you have a single TCP port forward configured on the router, forwarded to the port on the machine for SSH or whatever service is exposed. No other networking config. (You could alternatively code a small "wake-on-demand" program that runs on the router, and initially listens on the port that will be forwarded to the service of the machine, but is resilient against port-scanning (maybe in a service-specific way to validate requests before waking machine), and reliable in setting and unsetting the port forward in the router when the machine is up and down.)
- unrealhoang 3y ago
  My very simple solution is to use a smart plug and config the mainboard to wake on power.
  - vageli 3y ago
    This is such a simple, fantastic idea. I went to enable it but unfortunately it does not appear to be an option available in all BIOSes.
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    But then you're draining your RTC battery. I used to have to replace my mother's PC's battery every 1-2 years before I understood she was leaving it unplugged for most of the day and told her to just leave it plugged in all the time.
    - unrealhoang 3y ago
      ah if you shutdown your machine by OS, it stays off, and to remotely turn the PC on, I have to turn the smart plug off and on. So no problem with leaving the PC unplugged all the time.
dgwynne 3y ago
At work we tunnel WoL payloads inside DHCP packets (https://github.com/eait-itig/wolod https://github.com/eait-itig/wolod) so we can use the DHCP relays on the edge network to push the packets out for us. The bootp procotol has a handy flag that indicates whether the last dhcp relay should broadcast or unicast the message being relayed, which is very useful in this situation.
sourcecodeplz 3y ago
Damn, wake on LAN, the memories. Used to disable this all the time back in the early 2000s when everyone was scanning ports.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  Back then people hooked up their desktops directly to the Internet like it was nothing. It used to be, you could scan open ports on your IP range and find exposed SMB shares to rummage around in.
  - sourcecodeplz 3y ago
    There was also a time where seconds after installing Windows XP and plugging the Ethernet, your PC would get infected. No browsing, no nothing.
    - fluoridation 3y ago
      I don't really believe that was ever a common occurrence. It wouldn't take mere seconds to detect a new device connected to the Internet. I can see it happening in a small LAN where one of the other computers is already infected, though.
      - universa1 3y ago
        Nah, it actually was. There was a point in time where windows was vulnerable without patches, but the limited ipv4 space was available with "bot-nets"/infected PCs. It probably was something Like minutes, so if you were quick between starting up and downloading the patch...
        fluoridation 3y ago
        Minutes, I can believe.
      - Nextgrid 3y ago
wildylion 3y ago
I just use a tiny OpenWRT router set up with Tailscale to wake my system up.
mthoms 3y ago
This article says port forwarding won't work because the IP address is "lost" when the computer sleeps. Is that still the case even if you've hard-coded an IP address using DHCP on the router?
ListeningPie 3y ago
My setup is a router with OpenVPN server, always on raspberryPi and a sleeping server. iOS shortcuts can run commands over SSH. The RaspberryPi receives a command from the the iOS shortcut and wakes my home server with wakeonlan MAC:ADDRESS

43 points by invpt 3y ago

anilr 3y ago

Is Wake on Lan still actively used? I created WOL software, but didn't do a good job of maintaining it. :|

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
I almost exclusively boot my desktop via WoL, either by running the command from a laptop or hitting a button on my phone (homescreen shortcut -> termux script -> ssh to router -> send WoL to desktop).
myself248 3y ago
I use it to wake my NAS a few minutes before a backup job. I've also built a reset-on-LAN card using an old wake-on-LAN-capable NIC and some simple circuitry to shape the pulse so it's suitable for the motherboard's reset signal. I send a WOL packet to the otherwise-unused address, and kapow, the presumably-wedged machine is no longer wedged! Writeup here: https://www.i3detroit.org/reset-on-lan-an-ethernet-aware-remote-reboot-device-from-junkbox-parts/ https://www.i3detroit.org/reset-on-lan-an-ethernet-aware-rem...
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Very clever! I suppose the modern take would be one of the MCUs with Wifi (ESP8266-like) wire that to the power signal on a PC.
  - MayeulC 3y ago
    interesting, one could probably power it from the motherboard itself pretty easily, too! One of the pins of the power switch is probably 5V (though possibly high impedance if a pull-up is used, so not much power). But I think I'll rather look into one of these Pi-based "ilo" with HDMI in and USB gadget support to get remote access to the BIOS as well. It may also be useful for remotely debugging computers of family members :)
    - myself248 3y ago
      Yes, it is powered from the motherboard. The mobo's WOL header, if present, contains +5VSB, wake, and ground. It's intended to power the NIC since the motherboard's slots aren't powered when the machine is off. (At least, ISA slots weren't, and PCI added standby power in a later revision.) Or, you can just tap the +5VSB line from the ATX wiring directly. It's the same as on the WOL header. USB-equipped boards tend to power the USB ports from standby too, to support USB wake events, whether from keyboards, modems, or whatever. Plenty of options. If I were doing it again, yeah, I might use an ESP chip. That would give me power, reset, and serial, and I can always enable a serial console in my OS. I wonder if the ESP32's camera peripheral could read HDMI...
beardog 3y ago
It is useful for IT staff especially on big properties or when working remote since we don't have to wait for a user to wake up a machine for us or go there ourselves, as long as one on the lan is reachable. I did this in 2022.
planede 3y ago
I use it for my desktop computer from my laptop. I also use sunshine/moonlight to stream games in the living room, and moonlight also supports waking the PC up, so apparently there is demand for the feature.
fluoridation 3y ago
I have a VPN between my home and work networks and I often leave my desktop in stand-by, so when I want to use my desktop for something, I SSH into one of my home servers and send a WOL packet to wake it up.

neilv 3y ago

An alternative with simpler networking is to to rig up a little Web server on your home OpenWrt router, listening on the WAN interface. When the URL is requested (with authentication of some kind), it runs `etherwake` with the hardcoded MAC address and the hardcoded interface (e.g., `eth1.1`). Then your UI to wake up your machine, from anywhere in the world, would be to access that URL via a Web browser or `curl` script. For accessing the machine once it's awakened, probably you have a single TCP port forward configured on the router, forwarded to the port on the machine for SSH or whatever service is exposed. No other networking config. (You could alternatively code a small "wake-on-demand" program that runs on the router, and initially listens on the port that will be forwarded to the service of the machine, but is resilient against port-scanning (maybe in a service-specific way to validate requests before waking machine), and reliable in setting and unsetting the port forward in the router when the machine is up and down.)

unrealhoang 3y ago
My very simple solution is to use a smart plug and config the mainboard to wake on power.
- vageli 3y ago
  This is such a simple, fantastic idea. I went to enable it but unfortunately it does not appear to be an option available in all BIOSes.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  But then you're draining your RTC battery. I used to have to replace my mother's PC's battery every 1-2 years before I understood she was leaving it unplugged for most of the day and told her to just leave it plugged in all the time.
  - unrealhoang 3y ago
    ah if you shutdown your machine by OS, it stays off, and to remotely turn the PC on, I have to turn the smart plug off and on. So no problem with leaving the PC unplugged all the time.

dgwynne 3y ago

At work we tunnel WoL payloads inside DHCP packets (https://github.com/eait-itig/wolod https://github.com/eait-itig/wolod) so we can use the DHCP relays on the edge network to push the packets out for us. The bootp procotol has a handy flag that indicates whether the last dhcp relay should broadcast or unicast the message being relayed, which is very useful in this situation.

sourcecodeplz 3y ago

Damn, wake on LAN, the memories. Used to disable this all the time back in the early 2000s when everyone was scanning ports.

fluoridation 3y ago
Back then people hooked up their desktops directly to the Internet like it was nothing. It used to be, you could scan open ports on your IP range and find exposed SMB shares to rummage around in.
- sourcecodeplz 3y ago
  There was also a time where seconds after installing Windows XP and plugging the Ethernet, your PC would get infected. No browsing, no nothing.
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    I don't really believe that was ever a common occurrence. It wouldn't take mere seconds to detect a new device connected to the Internet. I can see it happening in a small LAN where one of the other computers is already infected, though.
    - universa1 3y ago
      Nah, it actually was. There was a point in time where windows was vulnerable without patches, but the limited ipv4 space was available with "bot-nets"/infected PCs. It probably was something Like minutes, so if you were quick between starting up and downloading the patch...
      - fluoridation 3y ago
        Minutes, I can believe.
    - Nextgrid 3y ago

wildylion 3y ago

I just use a tiny OpenWRT router set up with Tailscale to wake my system up.

mthoms 3y ago

This article says port forwarding won't work because the IP address is "lost" when the computer sleeps. Is that still the case even if you've hard-coded an IP address using DHCP on the router?

ListeningPie 3y ago

My setup is a router with OpenVPN server, always on raspberryPi and a sleeping server. iOS shortcuts can run commands over SSH. The RaspberryPi receives a command from the the iOS shortcut and wakes my home server with wakeonlan MAC:ADDRESS