SleepOver - Support

If you are having problems getting your target hosts to wake properly using SleepOver, there can be many reasons for this:

  • The target host is not using a wired network connection (Ethernet cable).
  • The target host does not support wake-on-LAN.
  • The target host supports wake-on-LAN but has not been properly configured.
  • The magic packet is not reaching the target host.
  • The magic packet is reaching the target host but the MAC address is incorrect and therefore the magic packet is ignored.

Below you will find some troubleshooting steps that you can follow to try to resolve your problem.

It is recommended to try to get wake-on-LAN working first, before moving on to wake-over-Internet if that is required. Starting with wake-on-LAN will determine if your target host is capable of waking when it receives a magic packet and can save a lot of wasted time spent trying to get wake-over-Internet to work in the event that it cannot even wake-on-LAN.

Wake-on-LAN

  1. Make sure that the target host supports wake-on-LAN. This is usually determined by the network card or chipset used.
  2. Make sure that the target host has a wired Ethernet network connection. Whilst you can send the magic packet from any wireless machine with no problems, the machine you are trying to wake has to have a wired ethernet connection to the network. The reason for this is that it is the ethernet hardware in the target host that is kept alive when the machine sleeps, and it is this ethernet hardware that listens for the magic packet while the machine is asleep. Wi-Fi adapters cannot listen for the magic packet while the machine sleeps because they usually put the Wi-Fi adapter to sleep as well!
  3. Make sure that wake-on-LAN has been enabled on the target host. In Windows Vista you must select the Allow this device to wake the computer check box on the Power Management tab of the properties dialog box for the network adapter. In Mac OS X you must select the Wake for Ethernet network administrator access in the Energy Saver Options panel.
  4. Check that you have entered the MAC address for the target host correctly. If the target host contains more than one network adapter, you must ensure that you have entered the MAC address for the adapter that is used to connect the host to the LAN.
  5. Check that you have entered the correct IP address and subnet mask. These are used by SleepOver to calculate the broadcast IP address for your LAN and if they are entered incorrectly can prevent the magic packet from reaching your target host.
  6. If you have entered a hostname, check that it can be resolved correctly into an IP address on your LAN by tapping the Lookup button on the hostname edit screen whilst your iPhone is connected to your LAN. If your LAN will not reliably resolve local hostnames for you then you should leave the hostname field empty and use the IP address field instead.

Wake-over-Internet

Wake-over-Internet has the added complication of trying to get a magic packet which has been sent from the Internet to be allowed into your LAN and broadcast so that your target host can receive it. Please ensure that you have proved that wake-on-LAN is working before you attempt wake-over-Internet:

  1. Check that you have entered the MAC address for the target host correctly. If you have already got wake-on-LAN working and assuming that your target host only has one ethernet connection then you should enter the same MAC address again for wake-over-Internet.
  2. Check that you have entered the correct IP address and subnet mask. These should be for your public IP address, which is usually the public IP address of your Internet router or modem. You might be able to find this by visiting http://whatismyipaddress.com on your target host. Try entering the IP address you are given into SleepOver. If that still fails contact your Internet Service Provider for information about your public IP address.
  3. If you have entered a hostname, check that it can be resolved correctly into your public IP address by tapping the Lookup button on the hostname edit screen whilst your iPhone is connected to the Internet. If you do not have a hostname that will reliably resolve into your public IP address then you should leave the hostname field empty and use the IP address field instead.
  4. You will need to choose a UDP network port to send the magic packet to and ensure that this same UDP port number has been opened on your router's firewall, otherwise your router will just discard the magic packet. Make sure that you have entered this same port number into SleepOver.
  5. Finally, you need to configure your router to allow the incoming magic packet to be broadcast on your LAN. This is the most difficult stage because many consumer routers simply do not allow this. As there are so many makes and models of router available I cannot give specifics for any particular model, but the general steps you should try are as follows (you only need one of these to work):
    • Setup a port-forwarding rule to forward all incoming UDP packets on your chosen port to the broadcast address of your LAN. For example, if your target host has an IP address of 192.168.0.10 and your LAN's subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, then your LAN's broadcast address is 192.168.0.255.
    • If your router will not allow you to port-forward to the LAN's broadcast address (as many won't), then setup a port-forwarding rule to forward all incoming UDP packets on your chosen port to the IP address of your target host instead. This alone is not enough as your target host doesn't actually have an IP address while it is sleeping, so you need to setup a static ARP mapping in the router between the target host's MAC address and its IP address. See your router's documentation for details.
    You will need to check your routers documentation to find out if it supports these operations and if so how to perform them. If you cannot get these operations to work on your router, then try the following:
    • Google for you router's make, model and the words "wake" and "LAN" to see if anyone has had success with your model of router.
    • See if your router is compatible with DD-WRT, this is an open source replacement firmware that is compatible with many routers and is much more flexible than most manufacturer's standard firmware. For example you can certainly setup the static ARP mapping mentioned above using DD-WRT.
    • If you cannot or do not want to replace your manufacturer's firmware then you should contact your router manufacturer's support department and tell them that you are trying to forward wake-on-LAN UDP packets from the Internet to either your LAN's broadcast address, or to a specific host on your LAN using a static ARP mapping.
  6. Try using one of the free wake-over-Internet websites (such as Depicus or RSHUT) to test your router configuration. If you can get one of these websites to successfully wake your target host you can then copy the settings you used on the website into SleepOver.

As you can see, configuring routers to allow wake-over-Internet is not necessarily simple and sometimes not possible at all. I would like to build up a list of routers which are known to work, which I will display on this website for the benefit of anyone who needs this information. If you manage to get your router configured to allow wake-over-Internet to work reliably then please use the Report Router form to send me the following details:

  • Make
  • Model
  • Firmware version
  • Harware version
  • Notes on how you configured the router

This will help anyone who is thinking of buying a router to use with wake-over-Internet.