Wake-On LAN

[wizard612]

Hi guys I am desperately trying to get my computer to WOL so I can remote desktop connect (trying to avoid being forced to leave it on to save power).

My currently status is that I can wake the computer both from Standby and Shutdown if I attempt to wake the machine right after I put it in standby or shutdown ... If I wait a couple minutes or overnight, I can no longer wake the computer up.

I'll try to walk you through what I have done.

BIOS
The first step was to enable WOL in the BIOS


Then I had to disable a power-saving setting which disable WOL


Finally, I had to enable power to go to my NIC while the computer was shut down


Router
I assigned a static IP to the computer I wanted to wake:



I then set UDP port 9 to be forwarded to the computer I want to wake:



Network Card
I allowed the NIC to wake up from shut down in Windows


I then forced WOL pattern match


Forced WOL Magic Packet


Finally, set up the NIC Power Management




Alright, so this is where I am at today. What I believe is happening is that ARP table is dynamic. After my computer has been shutdown or on standby for a while, the router ARP cache is cleared for my machine. When I send the magic packet the router has cleared the ARP cache and thus the packet doesn't get to my machine. This also explains why when I immediately try (ARP chache hasn't been cleared yet) the WOL works.

I wanted to see if anyone could tell me how to work around or resolve this issue? Thanks in advance for all of your help.

[Hammer_Time]

Hi Wizard! Thanks for your very detailed post... you did everything correctly to get WOL working, except you are right about the router's ARP table, that is indeed what is causing your problem now. You need to make a static entry into your Router's ARP table and then it should work all the time for you:

http://windows7-issues.blogspot.ca/2011 ... -easy.html

geocooOctober 26, 2011 1:50 PM

THANKS for this guide! Brilliant. One note if you are having trouble port forwarding to the internal broadcast address x.x.x.255, it worked on one of my routers but not another (even though it did let me add it). I used some info from here (http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WO ... Forwarding). I added a port forward to an UNused IP on my LAN, then added a static ARP entry in router (using telnet) to link that UNused IP to FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF and it works from the Internet!!

BTW I dunno which Westell router/gateway you have, but there is an ARP cache bug with this model, be warned! :

http://blog.davidron.com/2012/05/fix-ve ... m-arp.html

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Fix The Verizon FiOs Westell 9100em Arp Cache Bug

It seems like the Verizon FiOs Westell 9100em has a very small ARP table that ages out old IP address ->mac address mappings before the lease has expired on those IP addresses.  The symptom is that over time, you can't ping any device on your wireless network.  You get a "host not found" or "destination host unreachable".  One way I was able to solve this without introducing additional complexity (another wireless router) was to simply increase the frequency with which all machines must renew their IP addresses.  The default is 24 hours, so I reduced it to 6 hours.  Here's how:

Log into your Westell 9100em (http://192.168.1.1)
Click advanced->IP Address Distribution
Click the "edit" button next to "Network (Home/Office)"
Change the TTL from 1440 to 360
Apply

Posted by David Ron

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r ... -Multicast

Westell A90-9100 and Multicast

I'm trying to setup the Westell A90-9100 DSL Modem to Multicast, so that I can enable WOL. It works for a few minutes, then apparently the ARP table loses its memory and I can no longer wake up the system.

How do I go about setting it up for Multicast? I have forwarded UDP ports 9 and 32767. But after it's been powered off for a while, the router shows as being offline.

Any and all help appreciated.

This appears to be a common issue with the cheap Westell Gateways and their tiny ARP cache tables that have to be cleared faster than other brands of routers/gateways that have larger caches and thus do not need to "refresh" the ARP table cache as often...the solution is to buy a quality router and "bridge" the Westell Gateway to that ( only use the modem part of the Gateway, disables/ignores the router portion of the Westell Gateway and sends the internet signal to your new router ). Or even better, return the Westell Gateway and exchange it for a pure modem ( no router functionality ) IF this is possible from your ISP , I realize this is not possible for some ISP's depending on which plan you have with them , in that case your only choice is to BRIDGE the Westell Gateway to another brand of Router ( I use D-Link DIR-655 triple antennae with streaming engine and am very pleased with it, have seen it on sale for as low as $60 lately which is about half of what I paid for my first 655 ( on my second one years later, paid $90 for it 2 years ago )... awesome router for 60 bucks now... so you don't have to spend a ton of cash to get a decent router these days...good luck with it all!!

Apparently WOL WILL WORK with the DIR-655 but only if it has the latest fw on it ( mine does, I don't use WOL currently but I might try it in the future since your thread has interested me in this now... ) :

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=16404.0

First, this guy had the exact same problem as you with the DIR-655:

The DIR-655 WOL Knowledgebase Thread

« on: December 07, 2010, 07:49:24 AM »

Hello All,

I've going through the trials and tribulations of getting WOL running on my DIR-655.  Well, I'm actually trying to get wake-on-wan (WOW) or WOL via internet working... There are plenty of threads out there that provide tidbits, but they all seem to be lacking some crucial piece of information - like what firmware version people eventually succeeded with - and whether the solution proved to be long lived (was not subject to the arp cache aging issue).  So, I hope this thread may become the single source of truth - over time - to provide comprehensive information and solutions, so that more people may get this seemingly simple piece of functionality to work.

So with that, let's visit some of the purported issues.  Having read many posts before starting this thread, it seems clear to me that some of these issues manifest in some firmware versions but not others.  So as you contribute to this thread - PLEASE explicitly state what firmware and hardware version your information pertains to. On to the issues...

1. Validator prevents use of x.x.x.255 (broadcast ip) in the Virtual Server configuration.  There are workarounds for this issue, including disabling javascript in your browser; or switching your subnet mask so that you have a different broadcast ip (x.x.x.127).
2. The arp cache gets flushed - after which point the WOL packet does not get delivered to your dormant PC.  Not aware of any effective workaround.  Setting a static dhcp reservation does not seem to be effective.
3. Must use the "Wake-on-Lan" preset in the Virtual Server configuration rather than creating your own identical rule.  There's something magic about the preset?  Not sure why this makes a difference, but some folks claim it did.

I currently have the 1.34NA firmware loaded, and I have hardware version A3.  I'm using the "Wake-on-Lan" Virtual Server preset, and it lets me specify x.x.x.255 (broadcast) as the internal IP - no validator/javascript error preventing me from doing this.  However, I do seem to be suffering from the arp cache flush issue.  After the PC sleeps for a few minutes, I am no longer able to wake it from a WAN magic packet.

Please contribute your information to the table below.  Add specifics about your working configuration.

Thanks!

But this dude found a workaround for your problem in that thread!! :

I got WOL to work for DIR-655, Hardware Version: B1, Firmware Version: 2.00NA

FIRST STEP

On SETUP, NETWORK SETTINGS, I changed the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.128, where the Router IP Address was already set to 192.168.0.1

SECOND STEP

I then saved the change. My router hung and had to reset it, but the change occurred. Admittedly this is a pain in the ass, but blame D-LINK.

THIRD STEP

On ADVANCED, VIRTUAL SERVER, I added 192.168.0.127 as the device to wake-up EVEN THOUGH the actual IP Address of the PC I want to wake-up is 192.168.0.100. I am not an expert, but I believe ALL PCs on my local network that are setup to Wake-up On Lan, will in fact wake-up. I can live with that as ONLY my PC that is PERMANENTLY ASSIGNED 192.168.0.100 is set to wake up which is exactly what I want. BEFORE saving the changes on ADVANCED, VIRTUAL SERVER, I additionally set Name to Wake-On-LAN, Public and Private ports to 9, Protocol to UDP, Schedule to Always, Inbound Filter to Allow All. I then saved the changes.

I can't begin to tell you how many suggestions I tried that did NOT work! However the above procedure worked for my DIR-655, Hardware Version: B1, Firmware Version: 2.00NA.

So mebbe you could try that "Third Step" listed above with your Westell gateway and see if it works or not...if not then you will most likely have to get a different Gateway or Bridge the Westell to a good router such as the DIR-655... good luck!!

If the info above does not work, here is another workaround to try:

I don't know why there should be any problems with WOL.
I'm using a DIR-655 Revision A5 with firmware 1.34EU.

I just activated the Virtual Server - profile "Wake-On-LAN" pointing to 192.168.0.255, nothing else. I don't need to do any tricks to set this setting, I don't get any errors like "out of range" or something like that. If your Subnet-Mask is 255.255.255.0 and your IP-range is 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.199 (0 everywhere!) then it should accept it.
With everything else than this 0 I get out of range, too.

And it works, I can wakeup every PC at home I want to. All have fixed DHCP-reservations (but I don't even think this is important, because 192.168.0.255 packets are accepted by everything that is connected to the router).
I have already used it over 3 weeks, two times. I switched my PC off before I went to vacation, and after 1 week I sent the WOL package over the internet to start the PC which has an remote server installed, and it worked without any problems. I did several complete shutdowns and reboots over internet.

I noticed only one situation in which it doesn't work. If you set the PC-specific IP for WOL instead of 192.168.0.255, then it works just for the next minutes after you switched off your PC (ARP flush issue I think?), but if you set the IP broadcast, there are no problems at all.

I have 3 PCs at home, installed remote control servers on each of them, and wrote a list with their MAC adresses, then I can just use this website (http://stephan.mestrona.net/wol/) to reactivate the PC I want to have access to.

It took me 5 minutes to set up a completely working Wake-On-Internet without having any knowledge about WOL before, so I really don't know why I always read statements about the DIR-655 and other Dlink-router that this isn't possible.
Maybe differences between the EU and NA firmware?

Dunno if you own an iPhone but there is a WOL app for that too!! :

PatrickNovember 18, 2011 11:40 AM

Matthew,

Just another short note to add my thanks for a clear, concise guide on how to implement WOL.

After I got this quickly up and running on my PC decided to splash out £1.49 for an iPhone app, iNet WOL, which worked straight out of the box thanks to the changes already made.

Now getting remote access to my shut down PC is never more than a click away.

Top man!

[wizard612]

Hammer, as always thank you for the helpful response. It looks like I'll have a project tonight . I'll let you know how it goes!

[Hammer_Time]

Most welcome! I hope one of the above workarounds does the trick for ya! Let us know how it turns out of course...

[Sauron_Daz]

Hammer, as always thank you for the helpful response. It looks like I'll have a project tonight . I'll let you know how it goes!

I have a wife to provide me with projects....

[wizard612]

Guys, thanks so much for all of your help. I found a good resource on the web that is hopefully helpful to others:

http://www.wolcenter.com/faq.php


What they suggest is the following:

My router does not natively support Wake On Lan, what can I do?

By "natively", I mean that the router will forward to the LAN all magic packets received from the Internet. If a router don't support Wake on LAN natively a few workaround may be usable:

if the router supports it, forward the UDP packet to the broadcast address
if your router supports static DHCP, define a static DHCP entry for the PC wake up and try to forward to the choosen IP address. Hopefully, the router will read the static DHCP list and forward the magic packet the MAC Address in the according rule.
If none of the suggestion above work for you, the last solution is to use a third hardware device (router or PC always powered on) which will operate the UDP forward to broadcast address.

What is a broadcast address?

When a data frame is sent at a broadcast address, it is received by all devices connected to the network (assuming broadcast addresses are allowed on the LAN). In most home and small business it will end in .255. For example, a gateway router with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 will typically have a broadcast address of 192.168.1.255.

I mention that if the subnet mask is 255.255.255.128, the UDP broadcast address is 192.168.1.127.

For Wake on LAN, sending a magic packet to a broadcast address is very convenient because all devices connected to the LAN will receive the magic packet. However, since the magic packet contain the target MAC address, only the destination PC (according to the MAC address) will take into consideration the wake up request. All other PCs will ignore the network packet. Remember that since the PC is powered off, it has no assigned IP address usable to submit a network message.

So what I ended up doing was changing my Subnet Mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.255.128. I then had to change my IP Address distribution to end at 192.168.200.126 (from 192.168.200.253)


Once this was done, I change the port forwarding rule to forward UDP 9 to 192.168.200.127 (broadcast address).


So I can wake the computer up from a computer inside the network after the ARP table has been cleared.

I still can not wake the computer from a computer outside the network.


So to the best of my **limited** knowledge, the only thing I have done by changing my Subnet Mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.255.128 is reduce the number of available IP addresses. Is that correct? What else did I do by changing my subnet mask?

The second question: By doing this, have I left myself vulnerable to security threats or am I ok? My firewall settings are as follows:




Thanks again for all the help guys.

[wizard612]

Alright guys, I have just confirmed the computer still boots with a WOL packet after it has been off over-night from a LAN computer.

Unfortunately, it still does not WOL from a computer outside the network.


I'm still very open to anyone if you have any suggestion on how to make this work.


What I have done in the meantime ... I created a VPN using my QNAP NAS. I then connect to the VPN from my Android phone, once I'm on my VPN I send the magic packet and it works. I didn't really want to have a VPN but what works, works.

[DIREWOLF75]

Firewall issue?

[Hammer_Time]

At least you have a workaround that works now!

I have 3 PCs at home, installed remote control servers on each of them, and wrote a list with their MAC adresses, then I can just use this website (http://stephan.mestrona.net/wol/) to reactivate the PC I want to have access to.

You have basically replicated "installing remote control server" by using a VPN to your NAS...then wake up the pc from that...roundabout way but at least it works for ya...

sorry out of ideas here, mebbe somebody else with experience doing this can comment and help you out... in the meantime at least you have found a way to do it even if it involves a few extra steps...

[Hammer_Time]

Firewall issue?

Very possible! He has his Gateway security set to medium which "blocks inbound policies" , so mebbe he should try "minimum" security which allows inbound and outbound policies... just to see if that fixes the problem or not...

[wizard612]

Guys, thanks for the suggestions. I agree, it does sound like my firewall is blocking the ping. I went ahead and moved the firewall setting in the router to "minimum" but that didn't fix the problem. Is there anything else I should be trying? Thanks again guys.

[DIREWOLF75]

Guys, thanks for the suggestions. I agree, it does sound like my firewall is blocking the ping. I went ahead and moved the firewall setting in the router to "minimum" but that didn't fix the problem. Is there anything else I should be trying? Thanks again guys.

Can you set an exception for the specific ping type to that specific adress used for the WOL?

*personally never had to deal with WOL*

[wizard612]

I think I'm in over my head. So I thought by "port forwarding" UDP 9 to the broadcast address was essentially getting around the routers firewall? I am not correct in thinking this?

I think I'm just stuck ...
Option 1) If I forward UDP 9 to my computers static IP it works (from internet and LAN) until the ARP cache is cleared and then it doesn't work from the internet.
Option 2) If I forward UDP 9 to my networks broadcast IP the router doesn't forward the packet to my computer from the internet (this works from the LAN).

Essentially, my options are:
1) Continue using VPN
2) Purchase new router (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320038 )
3) Figure out how to get my router to accept internet pings to the broadcast IP (despite security vulnerability)

[Hammer_Time]

Ah, I just noticed from your screenshot above that you have not changed the "Lease Time in minutes" from default 1440 minutes yet...

In a previous post of mine above, a guy said he had to reduce this number to "360 minutes" ( 6 hours ) so that the tiny ARP cache in his Westell Gateway would not flush so often...that fixed his WOL problem..at least in his case...

I recommend you try that first and see if it helps...

Also, why are you using "200" in your chosen static ip address??, you need to change that value to "0" in order to get WOL working okay ( not out of range ) :

I just activated the Virtual Server - profile "Wake-On-LAN" pointing to 192.168.0.255, nothing else. I don't need to do any tricks to set this setting, I don't get any errors like "out of range" or something like that. If your Subnet-Mask is 255.255.255.0 and your IP-range is 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.199 (0 everywhere!) then it should accept it.
With everything else than this 0 I get out of range, too.

And it works, I can wakeup every PC at home I want to. All have fixed DHCP-reservations (but I don't even think this is important, because 192.168.0.255 packets are accepted by everything that is connected to the router).
I have already used it over 3 weeks, two times. I switched my PC off before I went to vacation, and after 1 week I sent the WOL package over the internet to start the PC which has an remote server installed, and it worked without any problems. I did several complete shutdowns and reboots over internet.

I noticed only one situation in which it doesn't work. If you set the PC-specific IP for WOL instead of 192.168.0.255, then it works just for the next minutes after you switched off your PC (ARP flush issue I think?), but if you set the IP broadcast, there are no problems at all.

I have 3 PCs at home, installed remote control servers on each of them, and wrote a list with their MAC adresses, then I can just use this website (http://stephan.mestrona.net/wol/) to reactivate the PC I want to have access to.

It took me 5 minutes to set up a completely working Wake-On-Internet without having any knowledge about WOL before, so I really don't know why I always read statements about the DIR-655 and other Dlink-router that this isn't possible.

Set your subnet mask for 255.255.255.0 , set start of ip range to 192.168.0.100 ( or 192.168.0.10 if you prefer, no lower than that to keep .0 and .1 addresses free for modem/gateway etc. ) and final ip to 192.168.0.199

Then under "Port Forwarding" ( for localhost 127.0.0.1 of course ) then you need to change the ip address from 192.168.200.127 to 192.168.0.255 since that address is broadcast to every pc attached to your router...and leave the "Wakeup packet udp 9 active" part alone, that is already set correctly according to your screenshot...and allows you to forward through Port 9 properly as you intended..all good there!

Test that magic packet is being forwarded properly to your particular subnet using this utility:

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

If this does not work then I would give up and go buy a good router, the Asus one you listed is fine...good luck!!

[Fuzz]

You could try as HT suggested, you could try adding Port 7 the same way as port 9, and you could try checking the security log and see if it tells you if it sees the packet being rejected.

Any options in "advanced filtering" you could check?

[Hammer_Time]

True...

BTW, from Wizard's link above:

http://www.wolcenter.com/faq.php

My router does not natively support Wake On Lan, what can I do?

By "natively", I mean that the router will forward to the LAN all magic packets received from the Internet. If a router don't support Wake on LAN natively a few workaround may be usable:

if the router supports it, forward the UDP packet to the broadcast address
if your router supports static DHCP, define a static DHCP entry for the PC wake up and try to forward to the choosen IP address. Hopefully, the router will read the static DHCP list and forward the magic packet the MAC Address in the according rule.
If none of the suggestion above work for you, the last solution is to use a third hardware device (router or PC always powered on) which will operate the UDP forward to broadcast address.

Am starting to think he might be better off buying a router IF my last suggestions above don't work for him ...

[Hammer_Time]

Edit: I found one thing that might be holding Wizard back ( assuming he is using W7 ) :

http://windows7-issues.blogspot.ca/2011 ... -easy.html

INSTALL WINDOWS FEATURE "SIMPLE TCPIP SERVICES"

Open "Programs and Features" from the control panels or use the link in the zip. Click "Turn Windows features on or off" over on the sidebar. Scroll down and check "Simple TCPIP services" then click OK to install the feature.



START SERVICE "SIMPLE TCP/IP SERVICES"

Open "Services" from the "Administrative Tools" control panels or use the link in the zip. Scroll down to the service for which we just installed the feature. Make sure the service is started by clicking the link in the sidebar. Also ensure that the "Startup Type" is set to "Automatic" so that it will run with Windows.

Make sure you have that service installed... good luck!! I just checked my own W7 64-bit Ultimate here and it is DISABLED by default, so you have to enable that...

[Hammer_Time]

Well Wizard, any luck? been a few days since your last post, have you given up on WOL??

BTW, to clarify my previous post about ip addys:

IP addressing can be very confusing even to a seasoned geek. What defines the network (# of computers) is the 'subnet address.' Yours is probably 255.255.255.0 which would mean the following: The start of your setwork is 192.168.0.0 and is reserved by definition. The addresses that you may use for your devices range from 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.1.254 . The last address 192.168.0.255 is called the broadcast address which is also reserved. This is what all of the devices 'talk' on and how the switches and other devices learn where to route the network traffic. Hope this helps.

[Sauron_Daz]

Maybe he got himself disconnected..

[DIREWOLF75]

Maybe he got himself disconnected..

Or tried to change the wrong thing and all his computers are now wet puddles of molten metal...