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How can I do a wake-on-lan when the switch ports are down with laptops off.

robertaungst
Level 1
Level 1

I have a lab of laptops with wake on lan enabled connected to a 2950 switch. Each laptop has it's own port on the switch. When the laptops are shut down, the ports on the switch go down.

Is it possible for me to configure the switch to keep the ports up so I can boot these laptops remotely?

The server and laptops are all on the same VLAN.

Thanks,

Rob

4 Replies 4

sourabhagarwal
Level 4
Level 4

there is no way you can configure switchport to remain up even when the device connected to it is switched off.

if laptops and server which has wake on LAN (WOL) utility installed is on same VLAN, then you should be able to boot laptops even when they are switched off. WOL utility will take care of it to power on the laptop through MAC address, request from WOL server will be broadcasted to all ports which are in the same VLAN and appropriate device will respond to the server and get powered on.

problem occurs when laptop and wake on LAN server are in different VLANs because layer 3 devive which do inter-vlan routing will stop directed broadcast which is not your case as you have laptops and WOL server in the same VLAN.

HTH, rate if it does ....

Does that mean there is no way to wake up my laptops with them directly connected to the switch?

Hello

That does not mean that you cannot use Wake-on-LAN because you cannot force the switchport to always remain in connected state. The interface is supposed to be remain in connected state when Wake-on-LAN is working per the specifications. The laptop should be drawing power in standby mode to keep the interface active even though the machine is powered off.

As long as the BIOS has WOL enabled and the laptop has a power source available (ie. battery not dead or AC adapter plugged in), the link should be active on the laptop. You should double-check the Wake-on-LAN documentation from the vendor to make sure all the settings are enabled and configured properly. I would start by looking at the BIOS settings first.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that was very helpfull. The manufacturer tells me the laptop only supports wake-on-lan from standby. When the laptop is off, the network card has no power to keep the connection up.

Thanks for the help.

Rob

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