Wake up on LAN

[thedocta45]

Hey all wanted to try to figure this out.

I would like to be able to remotely power on my home computer from the office.

As I understand I would need to set up a VPN.

What sort of hardware would be cheapest to run a VPN for this function?

Would a home router with a custom firmware support this or would I need to jump to a firewall distro like Untangle or pfSense?

Or is there another option that I am not thinking of, I suppose I could just install Logmein or something, but I am not sure of the power on mechanic that program uses.

 

[toast0]

If you can login to your firewall from the office, you should be able to send a wake on lan packet to the other computers on your lan. I think I've seen that in the web ui for some stock routers, definitely would be an option with dd-wrt/openwrt/etc (you might have to install a package). Would not necessarily need a VPN either... you could have port forwarding rules in your firewall for when the machine is up.

 

[thedocta45]

Yeah I was thinking I could do something like that.
I am concerned however about the security issue of having open ports on the router.
I would have to secure all possible accounts on the computer in question.
And change the default password on the router as well.

 

[leeishom]

I have an Asus RTN66U Router running Merlin's FW at home with WOL function.

Log into Router, select target WOL'ed. No need to tunnel onto Router, no need to open ports.

 

[thedocta45]

Well looks like I will have a project for this weekend.

Any other ideas are welcome.

 

[DouglasteR]

Dont forget to enable it on bios.

 

[thedocta45]

Dont forget to enable it on bios.

lol, yeah I know that all to well, spent a week hunting down computers at a job that were supposed to be wake on LAN.