[UK] Wake On LAN and Virgin Media's Super Hub

[iiSeptum]

Hey Forum!

This is my first post here and I figured this would be an appropriate place to ask intelligent people. As the title suggests I have a question about WOL and Virgin's Superhub (the first edition, not the one with 2Ghz and 5Ghz wifi antennas).

I set up the WOL function correctly, BIOS, Device Manager, in the Power Management section 3 tickboxes are ticked. The first time I set it up, everything worked fine, however after a couple of software updates (Windows 8.1 by the way) the function has ceased to work.

Is there a way to keep my Realtek Network Card on the "Wired Devices" table, because I think that is the only factor that is keeping WOL from working.
My thoughts are that the software update broke it, does anyone know a solid version that works well with Superhub and WOL?

On a side note I have enabled TCP/IP services as well in Control Panel, and opened UPD port 9 in Windows Firewall.

If someone could just link or write up a guide on what has to be done to wake up the PC from the Internet. I would be forever grateful

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your replies!

PS: http://imgur.com/kHRE6ao - This is what Superhub shows when PC is off, however the ethernet light is on indicating that the NIC is getting the standby power. My bet is that WOL would work if the PC showed up as connected to the router.

 

[Kewlx25]

Try making sure you have the newest RealTek drivers for your NIC? There is no real notion of being "connected" to the router, but what you're using as the notion of "connected" is the OS transmitting data. WOL only functions when your computer is shutdown, meaning the OS is not running.

In theory, WOL does not work over the Internet because WOL is a Layer2 feature of Ethernet, which gets stripped out over the Internet. There are some custom implementations that are not standard which could work, but it's more common for some software that runs on one of many machines in your network and when you attempt to WOL a machine in your network, the request goes to the already running machine, and that machine sends out the WOL on the local network.

How exactly did you have it working in the first place? How were you sending WOL packets? Did you have to change anything in your router?

 

[iiSeptum]

Try making sure you have the newest RealTek drivers for your NIC? There is no real notion of being "connected" to the router, but what you're using as the notion of "connected" is the OS transmitting data. WOL only functions when your computer is shutdown, meaning the OS is not running.

In theory, WOL does not work over the Internet because WOL is a Layer2 feature of Ethernet, which gets stripped out over the Internet. There are some custom implementations that are not standard which could work, but it's more common for some software that runs on one of many machines in your network and when you attempt to WOL a machine in your network, the request goes to the already running machine, and that machine sends out the WOL on the local network.

How exactly did you have it working in the first place? How were you sending WOL packets? Did you have to change anything in your router?

Thanks for your reply. I just googled "how to setup wake on lan" and by using common sense and the tutorials that I have found, it just started working. I was using http://wakeonlan.me primarily for waking up my PC and it was working perfectly (I always referred to my router's "connected devices" page to see if my PC was connected. Once I saw that it is, I'd just simply send the packet.)
Since updating the Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller once via Windows Update and the second time through Device Manager, I have noticed that I am not able to wake it up.
And to answer your final question, no, I have not changed anything in the router settings.
I guess the main factor is the updates (PS: It's up-to-date, nothing new available)

 

[bill001g]

You have to really read about WoL you are not using it correctly. Very technically it should be impossible to do what you are attempting but it works because the end devices to do not enforce the standard to the letter.

A WoL magic packet is suppose to be sent to the broadcast mac address. Very technically no equipment should have any knowledge of your end devices MAC or IP address since very technically they don't exist because the machine is powered off and no OS is running to respond.

What unfortunately in some ways that works is you can send IP packets to the device containing the proper string and it will treat them as WoL packets. The reason it is unfortunate is it only works some times. You are susceptible to ARP and MAC time outs in the switches and routers. So WoL will work for short periods of time and then address timeout of the tables and the no longer work.

The hack to get around this is to put in static ARP entries in your router so the router always know what IP is what MAC. It mostly works because most PC will packets with IP headers in them even though it is in the grey area if this is valid.

The main problem with this theory is since the OS of your machine is not running how do you really know it will get that IP address when it boots. If it is using DHCP it can actually get any IP and if the DHCP server would ever assign the IP do a different machine your static ARP entry for that IP would break the new machine that got the IP.

The actual solution to this is called directed broadcast which is not supported on most home routers and is a huge DoS security exposure and is disabled on most commercial routers. The way this is implemented most times in a commercial install is a slave machine is place on the same network as WoL device and you ask that machine to issue the WoL packets on your behalf.

 

[iiSeptum]

You have to really read about WoL you are not using it correctly. Very technically it should be impossible to do what you are attempting but it works because the end devices to do not enforce the standard to the letter.

A WoL magic packet is suppose to be sent to the broadcast mac address. Very technically no equipment should have any knowledge of your end devices MAC or IP address since very technically they don't exist because the machine is powered off and no OS is running to respond.

What unfortunately in some ways that works is you can send IP packets to the device containing the proper string and it will treat them as WoL packets. The reason it is unfortunate is it only works some times. You are susceptible to ARP and MAC time outs in the switches and routers. So WoL will work for short periods of time and then address timeout of the tables and the no longer work.

The hack to get around this is to put in static ARP entries in your router so the router always know what IP is what MAC. It mostly works because most PC will packets with IP headers in them even though it is in the grey area if this is valid.

The main problem with this theory is since the OS of your machine is not running how do you really know it will get that IP address when it boots. If it is using DHCP it can actually get any IP and if the DHCP server would ever assign the IP do a different machine your static ARP entry for that IP would break the new machine that got the IP.

The actual solution to this is called directed broadcast which is not supported on most home routers and is a huge DoS security exposure and is disabled on most commercial routers. The way this is implemented most times in a commercial install is a slave machine is place on the same network as WoL device and you ask that machine to issue the WoL packets on your behalf.

Thank you for a very detailed reply! I guess it worked somehow in the first place, but it doesn't really matter now. I just leave the PC on since Teamviewer is always open, but thanks a lot for the informative replies, you two
I'm not sure how or why it worked, but with my observations, I noticed that WOL works when the PC appears in the "Wired Devices". According to your explanations, the OS must've been "on" somehow, but I actually did turn off the PC and turn it on via the website.

Anyway thank you for your explanations, and help! Much appreciated.

 

[bill001g]

Likely the IP is still in the ARP table in the router it varies by vendor how long it stays but it can be anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours.

 

[iiSeptum]

Likely the IP is still in the ARP table in the router it varies by vendor how long it stays but it can be anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours.

Well in that case, is there a way to extend the time the IP stays in the ARP table?

 

[bill001g]

Like I stated you can put static arp entires in how exactly depends on the router