VPN & WOL Help!

[knight92]

Hi all,

Im a newbie and have a RT-N66u, with Merlin build 374.41.

WOL works fine internally within my network but not when Im outside of my lan when I use the VPN client on the router. For reference I have setup the broadcast support on the options to 'both.'

Has anyone else had this problem or can you think of anything Im missing?

Thanks

Paul

 

[thelonelycoder]

Just guessing, have no experience with it.
Would a WOL sent externally through VPN end up on the wrong port?

 

[knight92]

Thanks for the message back.

It shouldn't do. My understanding is that as long as the VPN passes through the broadcast packets then it should work. Maybe Im wrong though. It would be good if someone could confirm they have a similar setup working?

 

[Ford Prefect]

IMHO the WOL packet is L2/Ethernet...normally VPN is set-up with a TUN interface, which is IP only.
The packet won't go through.

However, using the WOL tool inside the router (accessing the http page
of the router from within the VPN) should work.
The WOL packet is then generated by the router, not the remote
client on the VPN side....it works for me this way all the time.

 

[knight92]

Thanks Ford Prefect.

I know you can send it from the router but I want to be able to wake without logging in to web end. For example having a VPN connection on my phone then using the phone to send the WOL packet.

So Ive done a bit more checking and tried Asus firmware 3.0.0.4.374.5517 after noticing the release notes contain the line "9. Fixed wake on lan magic packet sending issue."

The good news is when I have a VPN connected and sending the WOL packet it works using the above firmware. However I can confirm the same setup doesnt work with the Merlin build.

In short I guess Ill be sticking to the Asus firmware for now. Shame as I prefer the advanced features on the Merlin firmware but hopefully I wont have to wait to long!

 

[Ford Prefect]

...ok, understood.
What Merlin build exactly? I seem to recall that this fix has been merged into the later .41 or .42 Merlin release?

 

[sinshiva]

this looks like the best workaround;

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/enable-wol-wake-on-lan-across-internet.23479/

which uses:

ip neighbor add 192.168.1.254 lladdr ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff dev br0 nud permanent

but instead of using their advice to portforward, you'd vpn in and and send the magic packet to the IP specified above. should it become necessary, i *think* you could do something like;

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p udp --dport 9 -d 192.168.1.1 -j DNAT --to 192.168.1.254:9

so that sending the packet to the lan side of the router is redirected to the workaround address.

 

[RMerlin]

So Ive done a bit more checking and tried Asus firmware 3.0.0.4.374.5517 after noticing the release notes contain the line "9. Fixed wake on lan magic packet sending issue."

That fix is strictly for the WOL web interface. It has nothing to do with manual sending of WOL packets.