Is wake-on-lan (WOL) easy to set up?

[George]

Am using Dell PC with WinXP-PRO, and it has wake-on-lan on the motherboard.



I leave my Linksys VPN router powered 'on' all the time (when I am out of
town), but would like to shut-down power on my PC (to protect from power
failures and surges as well as unauthorized access) and use the wake-on-lan
(WOL) feature to turn the PC 'on' (from a laptop from my hotel) so I can use
remote access (such as remote desktop management, or just be able to
"browse" files and retrieve them)



Is there a way via this router, or in WinXP-PRO, or with another hardware or
software product that can help me EASILY use the wake-on-lan feature to
remotely turn my PC 'on' and 'off'.



Can't seem to find anywhere the steps to enable remote power-up and
power-down. Is it really that obscure? Would greatly appreciate simple setup
steps to enable doing this, and the simple steps to wake it up or turn it
off. Some people have suggested getting PCAnywhere, but that seems like an
expensive way to just be able to turn a PC on and off, and browse files.



Thanks,

George

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I leave my Linksys VPN router powered 'on' all the time (when I am out of
town), but would like to shut-down power on my PC (to protect from power
failures and surges as well as unauthorized access) and use the wake-on-lan
(WOL) feature to turn the PC 'on' (from a laptop from my hotel) so I can use
remote access (such as remote desktop management, or just be able to
"browse" files and retrieve them)

Is there a way via this router, or in WinXP-PRO, or with another hardware or
software product that can help me EASILY use the wake-on-lan feature to
remotely turn my PC 'on' and 'off'.

Can't seem to find anywhere the steps to enable remote power-up and
power-down. Is it really that obscure? Would greatly appreciate simple setup
steps to enable doing this, and the simple steps to wake it up or turn it
off. Some people have suggested getting PCAnywhere, but that seems like an
expensive way to just be able to turn a PC on and off, and browse files.

George,

I think it's simple. You have to open a path through the router
for the Wake-on-Lan packets, but you might as well put the
computer in the DMZ, at least for a test, as you also want to
access it through other protocols.

Please have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxWakeOnLAN.htm
for some more information.

Hans-Georg