Wake on Lan - Close but no Cigar

Landoflemon

Hello, I can see from searches that WOL has been discussed here before, but I still can't quite get it to work fully.

I have it working when I try to switch the computer on from the internal network in the house. I have a Buffalo router with DD-WRT installed. As far as I can tell the problem appears to be contacting my home network from a public location. I have setup a host address with Dynamic DNS so when I type this into a web browser from a public network I get redirected to my modem configuration page. I have my DDNS settings in the DDNS setup tab in the buffalo configuration page.

I'm using an app on the iPhone to switch it on, when I switch it to "wake over internet", I've provided it with my host address, the MAC address of the computer I want to switch on, I've tried ports 7,8, and 9, all of which are forwarded from my router and modem to the destination computer.... but nothing happens! It would make some things more convenient for me if I could get this working. Anyone with any help to offer, I would love to hear from you!

swampgas

Landoflemon wrote: »

Hello, I can see from searches that WOL has been discussed here before, but I still can't quite get it to work fully.

I have it working when I try to switch the computer on from the internal network in the house. I have a Buffalo router with DD-WRT installed. As far as I can tell the problem appears to be contacting my home network from a public location. I have setup a host address with Dynamic DNS so when I type this into a web browser from a public network I get redirected to my modem configuration page. I have my DDNS settings in the DDNS setup tab in the buffalo configuration page.

I'm using an app on the iPhone to switch it on, when I switch it to "wake over internet", I've provided it with my host address, the MAC address of the computer I want to switch on, I've tried ports 7,8, and 9, all of which are forwarded from my router and modem to the destination computer.... but nothing happens! It would make some things more convenient for me if I could get this working. Anyone with any help to offer, I would love to hear from you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN

Looks like a WOL magic packet would have to be sent by an app running on the local network - I don't think you can simply forward an IP packet through your router to the server you want to wake and expect it to work.

Instead, you may need to trigger a remote app to send the WOL magic packet for you.

Landoflemon

Hmmm, thanks for the suggestion, If I need to remotely access an app to send a magic packet that essentially means I need a computer running at home to send it, and as I want my router to be the only thing that's on until I send a WOL command I don't think this solution is for me. I know I can get the router to send the message to the network card to wake up the computer from a remote location, there's just something I'm missing.

Today I am out in the University of Limerick and when I try to go to the host name I specified for my DDNS (anon.zapto.org) it is no longer sending me to my modem configuration page like it was when I tried this on my home network. Does this mean there is a problem with the DDNS that I set up?

FSL

Do you not need a machine running with DDNS for DDNS to maintain a changing IP address.

swampgas

I see you're using dd-wrt - are you following this?
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WOL

Landoflemon

FSL wrote: »

Do you not need a machine running with DDNS for DDNS to maintain a changing IP address.

Yeah, the DDNS is running on my router via the inbuilt DDNS options in the router, at least as far as I can tell it should be updating the changing IP.

@swampgas, thanks for the link, I've been looking at pages like this for days but I'll go through these instructions and update here in a little while.

swampgas

Landoflemon wrote: »

Yeah, the DDNS is running on my router via the inbuilt DDNS options in the router, at least as far as I can tell it should be updating the changing IP.

@swampgas, thanks for the link, I've been looking at pages like this for days but I'll go through these instructions and update here in a little while.

What's the iPhone app you are using?

You said you set up the port forwarding rules, but did you also add the static ARP entry as described, and reboot the router?

Landoflemon

I see that adding a static ARP is described in the link you provided but I have not yet worked through the previous steps and I haven't rebooted the modem or router yet.

The iPhone app I'm using is called Net Status.

swampgas

Landoflemon wrote: »

I see that adding a static ARP is described in the link you provided but I have not yet worked through the previous steps and I haven't rebooted the modem or router yet.

The iPhone app I'm using is called Net Status.

No rush - take your time

Just something that caught my eye, you say the port forwarding is set up to route the packets to the target system you want to wake - this doesn't look right.

From my reading of the tutorial, the port forwarding of the UDP packet should not be to the PC you want to wake up - it should be to an unused IP address. The static ARP table entry will convert this non-existent IP address into the broadcast MAC address ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, which will go to all ports on the switch.

Landoflemon

Thanks for the further instruction, but things have gone from bad to worse! For a while, whatever I had done with the router and modem I had somehow disabled the phone lines in the house too?! That took a while to fix, and now my DDNS is telling me that my updated IP address is 192.168.1.2 which is definitely not my IP address like it used to tell me, so now I can't use my anon.zapto.org to direct anything to my home network anymore?

swampgas

Landoflemon wrote: »

Thanks for the further instruction, but things have gone from bad to worse! For a while, whatever I had done with the router and modem I had somehow disabled the phone lines in the house too?! That took a while to fix, and now my DDNS is telling me that my updated IP address is 192.168.1.2 which is definitely not my IP address like it used to tell me, so now I can't use my anon.zapto.org to direct anything to my home network anymore?

It's hard to offer specific advice without a bit more detail ... best to tackle it one step at a time though.

(And keep notes! )

Landoflemon

Thanks, if I stick with it and work it out I'll post a response here outlining the steps for anyone else who finds themselves in the same confusing position! I understand I'm not giving a whole lot of detail so it's difficult for anyone to pinpoint my problem, but I simply don't have a solid grasp of the subject to confidently comment on where I am in the process at the moment.

freelancerTax

works for me outside of network -
try this

http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/woli.aspx

make sure outside traffic on the port you pick is forwarded to the boradcast address of your network e.g 192.168.99.255

Landoflemon

freelancerTax wrote: »

works for me outside of network -
try this

http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/woli.aspx

make sure outside traffic on the port you pick is forwarded to the boradcast address of your network e.g 192.168.99.255

Sorry, still not au fait with this stuff yet, is the 255 in bold being highlighted by you as this is the port that you are forwarding to the broadcast address in your example?

Do I get my broadcast address by adding my Static IP address for my particular machine (eg: 192.168.11.51) to my subnet mask or my public IP (eg: 193.1.104.2) to the subnet mask?

freelancerTax

the broadcast address is your local ip address substituted with 255 as the last set of digits

it is a special address that forwards packets to all devices on the network.

in your case looks like 192.168.11.255

doesnt matter what your external ip is

freelancerTax

oh forgot to add using the app i linked to use subnet mask 255.255.255.255
otherwise it wont work

freelancerTax

hey did this work for you?

Landoflemon

Sorry, I haven't been at home in the last 4 days to try it, tonight is the only time I'll be at home until next Sunday I think, so I'll let you know if I get it tonight or whenever I do.

Do you think that part of my problem is that I am unable to set my modem (BT Voyager 2110) to behave simply as a bridge modem into my router?

Landoflemon

Ok so I tried depicus tonight, and my PC did switch on....however now it's continuously waking up from sleep with no input from me at all as far as I can tell!

freelancerTax

make sure wake on usb is turned off - only have wake on lan turned on in the bios