WOL problem on NVX

Slasky wrote:
...WOL packets should be able to travel to a broadcast address, but as I stated earlier, I'm not sure if your router forwards the port correctly...

Agreed. That is the idea of checking with WireShark.

Does your WoL sending tool allows you to specify a broadcast address? If so, you should also try using it that way on your local LAN. That will confirm that the ReadyNAS responds to that.

It is a Belkin F5D8235-4 v1000

Will give Wireshark a go later.

Which port have you forwarded? There are some different opinions or options out there, most common are port 7 and port 9. Does your tool state which port it uses?

I am using port 9

With Wireshark running.

When I am using the broadcast address nothing comes out of the router.

When I have the port forwarded to the correct IP address I get this.

Broadcast ARP 60 Who has 192.168.2.200? Tell 192.168.2.1

So looks like the ARP data is lost and it doesn't know where to send the packet.

It seems its like we figured, that the switch flushes the ARP table when the computer / NAS loses power. Too bad it doesn't hold the data...

A pure layer-2 switch won't respond to ARP requests at all. It simply forwards traffic to all ports if it doesn't know what port is associated with the target MAC address (it works as a hub until it learns where the MAC address is). So the issue is really in the Belkin - its ARP cache is the one that is losing the ARP entry.

I use WoL in the opposite direction (using the NAS to wake up sleeping PCs). I use a GS724Tv3, which runs the same firmware as the GS716T. That works well for me, I haven't seen any ARP flushing over the year or so I have used it this way. Sometimes the PC has been sleeping for several days.

Are you using a static IP address for the NVX or a DHCP reservation in the router? A DHCP reservation might work better for this (since the router would already know the MAC address, it might not need to broadcast the request).

In my case, both my NAS and my computer that I WOL is on a DHCP reservation. I'm using the ReadyWOL addon on my Duo, and if the computer is switched off and powercable taken out, it won't respond to WOL packets. The NAS is connected directly to my router, while my computer is connected to a Netgear switch of some kind (can't remember model atm).

The router shouldn't flush the ARP info even though I'm connected through a switch should it?

Slasky wrote:

In my case, both my NAS and my computer that I WOL is on a DHCP reservation. I'm using the ReadyWOL addon on my Duo, and if the computer is switched off and powercable taken out, it won't respond to WOL packets. The NAS is connected directly to my router, while my computer is connected to a Netgear switch of some kind (can't remember model atm). The router shouldn't flush the ARP info even though I'm connected through a switch should it?

In your case I would want the router to use the DHCP reservation information (since it includes the mac address/IP address binding) - meaning it shouldn't ever need to send an ARP request for that device. The only reason I can think of to send the ARP would be to find which LAN port of the router is the correct one to use to reach the device. That is a small optimization (without it, the router needs to wait until it receives a packet from the device).

It seems unlikely that the router would handle switches differently. Though as far as I know, there is no standard behavior on ARP caches.

On your computer, there might be bios settings related to WoL.

BTW, what I'd really like to see is a WoL facility built into the router UI. That would avoid a lot of these issues.

Thats true, but most router manufacturers worry about creating a gateway to the internet for the everyman rather than optimizing LAN features for the top end user.

And that's what I've figured why it needs to send ARP requests, for the sole reason to find out where the MAC-address is located in the network. Still it should keep the ARP table input until I reboot or power down the router imo (unless I've misunterstood the functions and inner workings of an ARP table)

It's not a big loss for me though, as I only use the WOL function to power on my computer. I try to keep my NAS'es up and running all the time and don't have a need for powering them down. I have more trouble with my router losing / dropping connection to the WAN, and stop responding to ping, efficiantly dropping any service on the inside, like FTP and such, since there isn't any traffic outbound.

Slasky wrote:
And that's what I've figured why it needs to send ARP requests, for the sole reason to find out where the MAC-address is located in the network.

Almost. It certainly needs ARP to create a MAC/IP address binding for static addresses. DHCP is enough to create that binding for router-assigned addresses.

As you say, ARP is also a convenient way to find out where the MAC address is "located" - learning which physical interface in the router is used to reach to reach it.

Slasky wrote:
Still it should keep the ARP table input until I reboot or power down the router imo (unless I've misunderstood the functions and inner workings of an ARP table)

Yes. Though sometimes the physical interface changes. For instance if you have multiple WiFi access points, and you switch from one to another - then the router sees your traffic coming in a different LAN port.

Does your WoL problem only happen when you remove the power cable from the computer for a while? If so, the issue may be in the bios of the computer (not responding to the WoL request). If the computer is in a sleep state, then the bios actions are different than power off (requiring starting a boot sequence from the power off state).