Question Wake on Lan working occasionally

merk

Senior member
May 29, 2003
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Hi All,

My apartment building recently switched to an new internet provider. The building has 1gb fiber. I have to use the fiber router they provided and don't have access to it's admin interface. But they are willing to set up port forwards for me. I have one set up for rdp which is working. I had them setup UDP ports 7 and 9 for Wake on Lan. So far, i've been able to wake my PC twice using this. Once when the PC was off all night and i was able to get to power back on (from hibernate). and then earlier today my PC was on for several hours, and i put it to sleep just to test the WoL and it worked. Other than those two times, it hasn't worked.

It DOES work if i plug my pc directly into my own router and send the wake request over my own LAN. I can put it to sleep/hibernate and it wakes up every time. As soon as i switch the ethernet cable back to their router, it stops working. I have a dynamic dns account with noip. I dont think thats the issue since the IP address hasnt even changed in the last few days, and certainly hasnt changed in the last few minutes between each wake request.

I emailed them to see if there was some sort of DOS protection that might have been blocking multiple packets, they say there isnt any DOS protection.

I'm not really sure what else it could be at this point. Since the PC wakes up just fine when it's on my own LAN, i dont think it's an issue with my PC, it seems more likely it's something to do with their network. But I don't know how to confirm that.

Anyone have any suggestions?
 

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
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i cant tell if thats a legit suggestion or if this was posted by a bot or something.
sometimes googling the answer is easier than waiting for replies here.

Larry is no bot. He has extensive PC knowledge. If he isn't sure then he will point you to google.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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That's a legit suggestion. There are things to do, to get your PC to "Wake on WAN" signal, like telling your router to port-forward to the LAN IP broadcast address, that's one hack to get it to work. "Wake on WAN" definitely has a lot more quirks to it than "Wake on LAN" does.

I've never actually done it, so I can't give you a play-by-play. But there must be some guides out there somewhere for it. Maybe include your specific router model in searches, you might get more specific instructions.

The other possibility, is to enable VPN server on your router, and VPN into your LAN, and then send the Wake packet that way.
 
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merk

Senior member
May 29, 2003
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Ok, apologies for assuming you were bot. Since you replied almost instantly, but with a general response, it seemed bot-ish to me. The VPN suggestion maybe would work - I haven't tried setting up a hardware based vpn before. I don't have as many options since i don't have any control over the router supplied by the ISP. When i just had my own router to deal with, it worked fine. And works fine if i'm just working over my own LAN.

Since it seems to work occasionally when its going over the ISP's equipment, my hunch is it has something to do with their configuration, but i dont know how to figure that out.

Thanks for the suggestion, and apologies again to VirtualLarry for thinking you were a bot
 
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JackMDS

Elite Member
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Oct 25, 1999
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WOL through the Internet is a pain in the neck even if One has his own Private ISP connection.

In any case you have to dwell into Real Technoly, rather than "Verbal Technology".

1. You have to find what is exactly the nature of the signal that gets from the building internet entry to your ""Router"".

I would not be surprise that you would find out that the Building Routes to you. If so in order to get functional WOL you would need access to their Router (or may be they can do it for you).

2. You have to find out what is (technically) your Fiber Router. I would not be very surprise that it might be just Fiber to RJ-45 interface and not a Router.

Depending on what you find there might be a way to do WOL, or might that your setting does not support WOL.

In most cases Building that provide Central Interent to their Tenants might save some money but realy end up restricting any sophisticated setting.

:cool:
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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Thanks for laying it all out, Jack.

I guess you could say, "Wake on LAN" is a layer-2 protocol, and the internet is a layer-3 (and up!) protocol, so you have to figure out a way to "wrap" one in the other. I don't know if there exists any sort of routeable "Wan on WAN/LAN" protocol that is a layer-3 protocol that "talks" to a layer-2 "magic packet" protocol.

Edit: That is, if I'm not mistaken.
 

merk

Senior member
May 29, 2003
471
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Whats installed in my apartment is the Nokia wifi gateway 3. There's a fiber line into that, and then I have my PC plugged into their gateway. The port forwarding for RDP seems to be working ok. It's just the WoL that's acting all flakey. I had no problems at all back when i was using cable and just my own router.

I also have my own router plugged into the the nokia gateway. If i plug my pc into that router and then send the WoL (with port forwarding setup on my own router) the WoL works all the time.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
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Oct 25, 1999
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WOL works well through the Internet when you have an installation with regular Router Point to one Network wired computer.

The problem is your system before it. I.e, the Nokia which probably does not support infrastructure for WOL.

You can get Fiber to RJ-45 converter plug it to the WAN of regular Wireless Router.


:cool:
 
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merk

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May 29, 2003
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WOL works well through the Internet when you have an installation with regular Router Point to one Network wired computer.

The problem is your system before it. I.e, the Nokia which probably does not support infrastructure for WOL.

You can get Fiber to RJ-45 converter plug it to the WAN of regular Wireless Router.


:cool:
You think if i could plug my router directly in it might work? That also gives me an idea - i never tried power cycling the nokia gateway after using WoL. I really didn't think the issue was with the gateway but with something further up the line.
Do you have any experience with converting fiber to rj45? All my experience up until now has been with rj45/cable internet, so I'm not familiar with what's required to convert fiber to rj45.

edit: rebooting the gateway didn't seem to do anything, couldn't get WoL working just now
 
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mxnerd

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===

or try TeamViewer



I personally create account at TeamViewer and put my dad's PC into sleep mode (not totally shut off), I then use TeamViewer to wake up his PC and do the remote control. This way, no port forwarding required at all.
 
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SamirD

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www.huntsvillecarscene.com
Since it seems to work occasionally when its going over the ISP's equipment, my hunch is it has something to do with their configuration, but i dont know how to figure that out.
More than likely this is the issue. The isp is going to be using enterprise equipment which will stop something like this without extensive configuration. My gut hunch is that they configured some of it, but can't do the rest without compromising the rest of the community.

I had to deal with this once and just got an external IP from them. Then I had no issues with what I was doing (site to site ipsec vpn).
 

SamirD

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Whats installed in my apartment is the Nokia wifi gateway 3. There's a fiber line into that, and then I have my PC plugged into their gateway. The port forwarding for RDP seems to be working ok. It's just the WoL that's acting all flakey. I had no problems at all back when i was using cable and just my own router.

I also have my own router plugged into the the nokia gateway. If i plug my pc into that router and then send the WoL (with port forwarding setup on my own router) the WoL works all the time.
If they can port forward, they can probably set a dmz. If they can do that and the dmz is completely real (many through a router are not), then that might solve the issue.
 
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SamirD

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Do you have any experience with converting fiber to rj45? All my experience up until now has been with rj45/cable internet, so I'm not familiar with what's required to convert fiber to rj45.
You can use a media converter like this to convert from fibre to copper:

And as long as your ISP doesn't lock in mac addresses or do anything else funny, this should work. But with as restrictive as your isp is, I would call and check with them first about this idea before proceeding.
 

merk

Senior member
May 29, 2003
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===

or try TeamViewer

I personally create account at TeamViewer and put my dad's PC into sleep mode (not totally shut off), I then use TeamViewer to wake up his PC and do the remote control. This way, no port forwarding required at all.

I dont think this will help. It sounds like you are waking his PC over your local network. I have no problem doing that. The problem is waking it when I am not on the local network. It sounds like teamviewer does the same thing I am trying to do since it even mentions in the article that you have to configure your router to forward ports.

If they can port forward, they can probably set a dmz. If they can do that and the dmz is completely real (many through a router are not), then that might solve the issue.
You can use a media converter like this to convert from fibre to copper:

And as long as your ISP doesn't lock in mac addresses or do anything else funny, this should work. But with as restrictive as your isp is, I would call and check with them first about this idea before proceeding.
Oh, good suggestion about a DMZ, I hadn't though to ask about that.
I'll also ask about using the converter. My guess though is that they must have things tied down to a specific mac addresses or otherwise restricted. If i want to change the wifi password, i have to log into their website and change it through their website. But I'll ask.
 

mxnerd

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Your Wake-on-LAN always works because there is no port forwarding required.

Whether Wake-on-WAN will work seems always another story. Especially when you have no control of ISP provided gateway.

DMZ is an option.

TeamViewer's Wake-On-LAN.


Untitled.png
 
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SamirD

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Another thing to consider is simply a site-to-site ipsec tunnel if you're regularly at one site and need access to another. You need routers on each end to do this, but once the tunnel is set up, you can access any device just like it's on your lan by it's IP address. I have tunnels like this to all the sites I need to watch or interact with so no matter where I am, I just rdp back into my system and I continue working like I never left.
 
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JackMDS

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What ever is up here might or might not work.

However before any thing you need to know exactly what is the hardware/software arrangement of the the Entry to the building and the output to the fiber that goes to you.


:cool:
 

merk

Senior member
May 29, 2003
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Another thing to consider is simply a site-to-site ipsec tunnel if you're regularly at one site and need access to another. You need routers on each end to do this, but once the tunnel is set up, you can access any device just like it's on your lan by it's IP address. I have tunnels like this to all the sites I need to watch or interact with so no matter where I am, I just rdp back into my system and I continue working like I never left.
I dont think that is possible for me right now. My router right now is sitting behind their nokia gateway. And I dont want to mess around with my friends router just to try and get this working. It's not super critical for me. I don't mind mucking around with my own stuff, but i don't want to mess up someone else's network.
What ever is up here might or might not work.

However before any thing you need to know exactly what is the hardware/software arrangement of the the Entry to the building and the output to the fiber that goes to you.
That I'm not sure of, beyond knowing the nokia gateway in my apartment. I'll find out tomorrow if setting up a DMZ or using my own router is an option.