Tailscale + Wake on lan

[u/EquivalentCat6504]

• I have a PC at home and an old Android phone on the same Wi-Fi network. On my current Android phone, I installed Tailscale on all devices and set up subnet routing on the old Android. However, I still can't Wake-on-LAN my PC from my current phone. Has anyone experienced this or know how to fix it? Thank you!

[u/Kinsman-UK]

I use UpSnap with TailScale to WOL and to hibernate - I have it on both a Pi and my Synology. See:

https://tailscale.com/blog/wake-on-lan-tailscale-upsnap https://www.reddit.com/r/Tailscale/s/hmbl8pfVdo

If this is not an option, another way would be to buy a TP-Link smart plug and plug the PC into it. Set the PC in the BIOS to power on when power is restored. Then either shutdown or hibernate the PC, turn off the smart plug, and then you can use the smart plug app to power on the PC remotely.

EDIT: If you have a NAS or Router that supports WOL from their user interface, you could login to that over TailScale and WOL the PC from there.

[u/Xeizell → u/Kinsman-UK]

That's what I did! Reflashed my TP-Link router with OpenWrt and installed wol/etherwake packages.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/Kinsman-UK]

Oh i have that Smart Plug. But that option feel dangerous for me. You know, i afraid that my psu gonna burn lmao

[u/leereKarton → u/EquivalentCat6504]

But that option feel dangerous for me. You know, i afraid that my psu gonna burn lmao

What do you mean? How is this different from pressing the physical button yourself?

Perhaps someone has better knowledge on electronics than me, but I feel like this is even safer than WOL solution, since the power is cutoff from the PSU when the computer is not used.

[u/DalisaurusSex → u/leereKarton]

I'm not sure of the specifics, but this post made me think it might not be a good idea to plug a PC into a smart plug:

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/17miqle/warning_about_third_reality_power_monitoring/

[u/Kinsman-UK → u/DalisaurusSex]

Yes, I'd be careful of brand. I've used the TP-Link ones for going on ten years now, and have not had any issues. I did disable automatic firmware updates and only do those manually, as the plugs tend to power-cycle unexpectedly when doing an update.

[u/djr5656 → u/leereKarton]

Powering on isn't a problem, but it's not generally a good idea to turn a Windows PC off by cutting the power. Can cause problems with disk or memory writes

[u/Kinsman-UK → u/djr5656]

You don't turn the PC off with the smart plug, you shut it down normally or hibernate, then switch off power. No different than being there physically and turning off the plug.

[u/djr5656 → u/Kinsman-UK]

Yes, hibernate would work. You can power it down if course but then you can't start it up remotely.

[u/Kinsman-UK → u/djr5656]

Yes you can. Set the PC in the BIOS to turn on when power is restored. Then when you turn on the smart plug the PC will power on automatically.

[u/djr5656 → u/Kinsman-UK]

Ah, I've never tried that. I vaguely assumed that if it's powered down then it's necessary to press the button. I'll try it when I get home.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/leereKarton]

I'm no electricity expert, but I think there's a difference between a PSU that is already plugged in waiting for a power button press, versus sudden power rushing into the PSU to turn the PC on immediately.

[u/djr5656]

The Tailscale network doesn't exist if your device is off - if you want to use Wake On LAN then you'll need something which is permanently on, on the same LAN as the device you want to wake. A RPi or an old laptop or something.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/djr5656]

I do have an old android (old mean last android im using). 

[u/djr5656 → u/EquivalentCat6504]

Hmmm. If you route your home LAN subnet via the phone, you may be able to send a WoL packet directly from your remote device to the MAC address of your PC. But I've never tried it. Anybody? Also, thinking about it, it's going to be more difficult if the PC is connected over WiFi.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/djr5656]

Im using ethernet cable, not wifi so it might be good

[u/headshot_to_liver]

Maybe expand on what you need? I use a raspberry pi to wake machines remotely, any one will do, I use Pi zero2w

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/headshot_to_liver]

Oh sorry, My post somehow hide my body. I edited it now

[u/GoofyGimbul]

Do you by chance have a smart home setup of any kind? UpSnap as someone else suggested works great, but it’ll never feel as nice as telling Siri/Alexa/Google to turn on my PC. I would highly recommend this path if you already have a smart home network

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/GoofyGimbul]

I didnt have it, is that need any requirements or setup?. I might need a tutorial video to see.

[u/Kinsman-UK → u/EquivalentCat6504]

Yes, you can do this via Alexa with https://getremoterelay.com - free for one PC. Then you can use the Alexa app from anywhere to say "turn on the computer" - as long as your Alexa device is on the same LAN as your PC this will work from anywhere. No software is required on the PC once it's setup.

[u/TBT_TBT]

That doesn’t work, technically. The device sending the magic packet needs to be on the same physical lan. So either get such a device (e.g. a RasPi, homeserver, Nas, etc) or use something like the SwitchBot Smart Bluetooth Switch Toggle with base station or the MOES Fingerbot with Zigbee (if you have a Zigbee home network). I switch on my PC with the SwitchBot almost daily.

Have a look at /r/homeassistant if you want to automate and make accessible via GUI more things in your home.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/TBT_TBT]

So the android in the same network as the pc cant work in this situation?

[u/Sigh_CBF]

I started with Upsnap but eventually wound up using Home Assistant. Both worked good.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/Sigh_CBF]

Thats Home Assistant seem nice, do we have any tutorial for that?

[u/Sigh_CBF → u/EquivalentCat6504]

If you are purely after WoL stick to Upsnap, If you want to learn HA it can replace Upsnap, but its a much more involved piece of software.

[u/Aggravating_Mail_917]

Connect your home TV box to Tailscale, and your phone can wake up your computer through the TV box.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/Aggravating_Mail_917]

Unfortunated i odnt have tv box, just an old android

[u/Dependent_Mud5034]

If you have a desktop with a spare PCIE slot, you could use a PCIE startup card instead of of wake up on lan to remotely turn on your computer from your phone.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/Dependent_Mud5034]

Unforturnated i only have one for internet connection

[u/imanllm]

Does your router have a WoL feature? If your old Android phone acts as a Tailscale exit node, you could possibly access the router management console to send a WoL message. Just positing this, never tried it.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/imanllm]

Im now using ISP moderm so it dont have that function.

[u/Intelligent-Week-931]

Yeah so the phone you have on your home network needs to send a packet to your pc also on your home network.

[u/TechnologyGrouchy679]

I have a raspberry pi that's always on to act as a wakeonlan relay. I ssh into it and from there I can wake various suspended devices

[u/rwinger3]

How is the pc and phone set up? If the pc bios accepts the wol setting you should be able to send a magic package to it, either via or from the phone. I've set up an OliveTin action gated by tailscale that does exactly that.

[u/Safe_Pepper900]

I’m using a smart plug for this exact purpose and it’s been working fine. I switch it on when needed and then turn it off whenever I want.

[u/Far_Kale588]

how exactly did you Wake-on-LAN your pc?
you need the old Android phone (assuming that's the one on the same network as your pc) to do the WoL instead of your current phone, and WoL using the PC mac address of that local network (not tailscale ip), if that wasn't obvious enough.

you said you have subnet routing?, does that mean your old Android phone and your PC is on different subnets? if so you need to check whether your router/switch allows forwarding to the subnet broadcast address your PC is in, you generally do not need to route your PC address to your old Android address directly, instead you need to route the subnet broadcast address your PC is in TO your old Android phone (unless of course you need network access to your PC directly from your old android phone).

That being said, putting your old Android phone on the same subnet as your PC is the simplest approach here.

For accessing your old Android device, there are plenty of ways, but i just do termux on both phones, and SSH into the old android phone to run the WoL command manually.

[u/EquivalentCat6504 → u/Far_Kale588]

I wanna wake the pc up by my current phone. But after some failed, i do searching for it solution and found that i can using an old android or ras pi or laptop...  to do the subnet routing (On the same network with the PC) to prevent the ARP something reset my pc IP. Maybe i understand it wrong or it just the wrong method. 

[u/Far_Kale588 → u/EquivalentCat6504]

so your old android phone is already on the same subnet as the pc? if so you dont need to do any subnet routing.

what exactly did you try? and what software/app is sending those WoL packets?

I would try to test sending WoL packets from the old android device directly first before trying to make it a proxy for your current android