SME Server talk:Documentation:Administration Manual:Chapter10

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Revision as of 10:14, 11 July 2013 by Allsorts (talk | contribs) (WOL Note box and across internet use)
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Allsorts (talk) 02:14, 11 July 2013 (MDT) WOL section changed as per the Backup with DAR page:

Use WOL to power on Workstation

Important.png Note:
This is a new feature and not implimented in SME 8.0.


Wake On Lan can be used to power up the backup target workstation before starting the backup.

To use WOL there simply needs to be a new variable added to the backupwk section of the configuration database, nothing else is required. This variable holds the MAC address of the target workstation, if the MAC address is 00:4E:89:F5:FD:2B use:

db configuration setprop backupwk SmbHostMAC 00:4E:89:F5:FD:2B

There is also the ability to specify how long to wait between the WOL packet being sent and attempting to start the backup process. The default wait time is 300 seconds, this can be varied via another configuration database setting. It is recommended to not set the wait period below 300 seconds. To set the wait time to 600 seconds:

db configuration setprop backupwk SmbHostDelay 600

The target system must support, and be set up to respond to, the WOL "magic packets". The network infrastructure must also support WOL packets. WOL should work across the local network without problem. WOL packets are not routeable so it won't work across the internet without additional support from hardware and/or software such as a VPN tunnel. Getting WOL to work across the internet is beyond the scope of this documentation but there are plenty of resources available elsewhere. Most wireless connected devices do not work with WOL.

Note that there is no checking that the supplied MAC address is the correct one for the IP address/hostname of the target workstation. MAC address's are effectively static but IP address's/hostnames can change particularly if the target gets its IP address via DHCP. It is quite possible to have the correct target woken up and be ready but the backup to fail because the IP address has changed. However SME's DHCP server very rarely changes the IP address of a given MAC address.

To stop using WOL simply delete the SmbHostMAC variable:

db configuration delprop backupwk SmbHostMAC

and to be tidy if the optional delay parameter has been set:

 db configuration delprop backupwk SmbHostDelay