Problems with WOL

Hello

I am having issues to wake up my computer using WOL. My system is a HP dc7800 usdt. It has an Intel 82566DM 10/100/1000 NIC (no Atheros here) and I am using the back ports kernel. The problem is as follows: I can suspend my OMV both to disk and RAM without issues, and I can wake it up pusching the On/Off switch in the computer. However, if I try to wake up the computer with WOL using a magic packet, the system starts but then hangs. OMV never boots up and the computer freezes. The same happens wheter I try to wake up from standby, suspend or off modes. Similar results happens when using rtcwake: the computer goes into standby/hibernation and then restarts, but OMV does not boot up. The problem was present in both OMV 1.9 and 2.0.

For the magic packet, I used WOL app in my Android phone and also sending it from my Windows 7 pc. Both rendered the same result. Does anybody knows where the problem may lay?

Hi i7otep9wka

WOL is activated in Bios. As I said, the computer turns on, but OMV does not boot up. The problem is not making the computer start (it starts indeed), but making OMV to boot.

Quote from C0mmanda

Check your swap-size.
Had the same problems with WOL.

swap has to be at least as big as your installed RAM.
I would do a little bit more. (I have 4GB RAM and 16GB swap, but 6GB would be enough. Depends on how much GB you can miss on System-Disk.)

My swap and RAM are 2 GB. But perhaps it is too small. Will check that out. However, since the problem occurs even when I WOL from off state (that is, the computer completely shut down) I should have the same issue also when starting omv normally (pushing the switch in the PC).

Quote from tekkb

Did you enable wol in your nic settings in OMV???

The WOL option was not enabled (strangely the system still started). I enabled it and tried again. Same problem.

Quote from C0mmanda

If the swap causes the error it will show up in syslog.
 cat /var/log/syslog | grep swap 

But if you have the problem even when starting from S5-State I think it depends NOT on swap.

Overseen that S5 Detail... Sry!

Checked for that error in syslog. It does not appear. Is there any log that I can upload that may help?

Jop, I am using 3.16 and installed it from OMV-extras. I also set it as default boot kernel. Same result.

Quote from tekkb

Well, for my part, I would have to do some research on this. If you do not find solution I will try to look at this tonight.

Thanks for your support. I will fiddle a bit with it to see if I can make it work. I'll keep the thread updated if I find something.

Hello Forum. I am sick at home, meaning that I have some extra time to work in my PC.

Following the advice from C0mmanda, I checked the syslog of my OMV. First I shut down the PC and then waked it up via WOL. The system started but hanged there. OMV did not boot. I had to turn off the computer pushing the on/off switch and then restart it.

If I check the syslog, I can clearly see all the events related to the system shut down. But then there is a gap in the logs. Nothing related to the WOL is registered in the logs. The next entry in the syslog is until I manually restarted the computer.

Based on that, my guess is that OMV is not booting at all when I WOL my computer. Only then could I explain the gap in the logs.

If I repeat the process with a screen connected to OMV, once I start the computer with WOL I see the HP boot menu, but then the screen turns black and nothing happens.

Just to add to the previous. I was thinking if th problem may lay in the fact that my primary boot drive is USB. My boot drive is a small 8 GB SSD that is directly connected to the USB headers in the motherboard. Perhaps WOL does not like botting from an USB drive. I may be wrong however.

Quote from subzero79

Attach a monitor. You should see the fail in dmesg at boot.

If I attach a monitor and do a W"OL (from whatever S-state), the boot sequence freezes at this:

From there, the computer does not react to anything I do. I have to push the on/off switch until the computer shuts down. When I restart it (not via WOL, but by pressing the on switch) Grub kicks in and the computer goes into recovery. From there, I can select to boot OMV.

Quote from subzero79

also a quick search in Google shows quite a lot of reports from people with that card and wol.

I think I don't follow you. By "card" you mean my NIC or the USB SSD?

Quote from puterfixer

Does this happen only with OMV, or also with other operating systems? This would narrow down the root cause to the OS. Since you have an on-board USB header, it would be fairly easy to replace the current stick with another one, install another OS of your choice, and see if you can get it to boot up via WOL.

I checked already the BIOS settings but everything seems in order. I just updated the BIOS to the newest version. It seems that some HP computers suffer from this bug, and it is usually solved by upgrading the BIOS. Unfortunately for me, it didn't worked.

I may try installing another OS, or move away from using an USB boot drive. I will consider your suggestion and try a normal SSD/HDD.