[SOLVED] Do I need Dynamic DNS when I have set a static IP? Trying to use Wakeup-on-LAN via the internet with port forwarding

[ZacharyAlan]

I don't think my router supports DDNS. Well, the option is greyed out so I assume it doesn't. It's a Ubee router. I can't find any information on it so I assume it's a weird one, it came from my ISP, Spectrum.

I remember a few years ago I had some Minecraft and Unturned servers on my old Windows 8.1 laptop. All I had to do then is set a static IP and port forward and it was done. I didn't even know a dynamic DNS existed. Right now I'm trying to use my main Windows 10 PC as a streaming device to play games over the internet with my laptop, which runs Linux Kubuntu. I have Parsec set up, I just don't like how my PC is always going to be left on. So far I've tried TeamViewer, which the wake up option didn't even appear. I mainly have been trying gWakeuponLAN on Linux. It works perfectly when on the same network. I changed the BIOS and Windows 10 settings accordingly for it to work, it's just the port forwarding that seems to be the issue. I think.

I tried no-ip and some other DNS provider but they didn't work. I got it to work on mobile data with my phone a couple times, but after that it stopped working.

 

[bill001g]

Your main problem is that there is no such thing as wake on WAN.

The wake on lan does not actually use IP addresses it only uses mac addresses. In addition the packet is actually support so be sent to a broadcast mac address not the actual mac address but the packet needs to contain the mac address in a particular pattern.

What you are finding about port forwarding is a hack that only partially works. The vast majority of the article are wrong they omit the critical detail about ARP timeouts.

So when you send a data packet to the router and we assume all the port forwarding works it gets mapped to some internal IP address. The thing most people don't understand is lan traffic is not actually sent to IP addresses it is sent to mac addresses. So the router looks the mac address up in the ARP table and send it to the corresponding mac address.

Sounds good like everything should work right.

Well the problem is how does the router get the ARP entry in the first place. What it does when it does not have a entry for a IP address to mac it sends out a ARP request saying who has ip xx.xx.xx.xx. The machine that is using it sends out a response that includes it mac address and the router updates the table.

Still sounds good right. But this ARP entry times out after about 15 minutes, varies a bit between routers. The problem comes when the machines in off/wakeon lan mode. The router sends out who has xx.xx.xx.xx and the pc does not respond since it only really has a mac address at this point.

Sp now even though the wake on lan packet got to the router and it got translated via port forwarding it is dropped because the router does not know which mac address to send it to.

The only solution to this is to put static ARP entries in the table. Almost no consumer router has this options. The idiots writing the wake on wan things seem to not want to admit what they wrote it worthless to the vast majority of people so they omit this detail.

People like you will see it work for a short period when they test and then it doesn't work. It works for a short time because people likely just shut the PC down and the ARP entry is still in the router.

In general the power save options that turn the clock down on the cpu and memory and turn off things like the hard drive do not use a lot more power than the wake on lan state.

If you really want to do this the best option is a router that has a wake on lan function. You remotely access the router and ask it to send a real wake on lan packet. Otherwise you must find a router that supports static ARP entries. You want to assign a dummy unused ip and map it to the broadcast mac address fffffff.