Wake On LAN

[cpg]

from an email question:

Hello,
I was wondering if you had anything in the works for a Wake On Lan
application or service so Amahi users don't need to keep their servers in a
full power state. I'm trying to be as green as possible but still allow my
folks around the country access the files stored. That is... access them
ONLY when needed. Thanks!

good point in this day and age.

there is one thing we started working on, related to this.

we're writing a router interface (pluggable) library, so that we can add hooks to turn on and off router settings (DHCP) automatically on the way down (DHCP on in the router), and on the way up (DHCP off in the router).

i have it partially running against my own router now. i only had to figure out two URLs to turn DHCP on and off automatically (well, and write the code ).

now - wake on lan is something that depends on your hardware and the BIOS. then you need a client.

i guess we could have a small client to wake up the server, although i am not sure if simply trying to access the server would wake it up.

incidentally, this is a reason we like to have a relatively small DHCP lease time.

so, there is nothing available at the moment to address your question, however, there are some plans to address this area.

[moredruid]

good idea, however a few caveats (my personal opinion)
- a server is meant to be an always on device
- frequent reboots will give people a scare every once in a while (every 30 mounts/reboots to be exact), which could take quite a while with 2TB or larger volumes
- wake on lan: this requires another system to send a magic packet to the server to wake it up, then wait for a certain amount of time and then get the DHCP lease from the server. Unless you transition DHCP from Amahi to your router this will be a problem.
- background services (like transmission, sabnzbd, vpn, calendar etc.) will not be available if the system is turned off.