Wake On LAN problems and questions

[derringer]

I have a couple of issues with the new Wake On Lan functionality, and thought I'd bring them up here.

 

Firstly, it appears that 7.7 does *not* wake up MAC clients at all. In fact, from logs, it appears it doesn't even try. I can send Wake On LAN packets from a PC on the network and they wake the MAC up perfectly, so the only thing I can come up with is that Retrospect simply didn't 'turn on' the functionality for MACs. Does anyone have any idea why or when they will be turning this on? The checkbox exists for the MAC client, so why wouldn't we insert the 5 or 6 lines of code necessary to get it to wake the client like the PC clients do? Anyway, please report any experiences anyone else here has had with this.

 

Secondly, waking a PC client works, but Retrospect doesn't wait long enough for my client to boot. Is there any way you can change a setting or preference to get it to wait one minute instead of 30ish seconds, like it currently does? This seems to be something that should be a user adjustable setting.

 

Any help with either of these topics, or even observations, would be much appreciated..

[Mayoff]

Are you using a proactive backup script? That is required for this feature to work.

[derringer]

I'll assume that getting this to work with a non proactive backup script is on the agenda, since there is literally nothing preventing the functionality from working on a time-scheduled backup.

 

But, to answer your question, I did try a proactive backup script, and ran it for about 15 minutes and it never found the client or even attempted to wake it up. It could be I do not understand how proactive backup works, but shouldn't it have tried once in the 15 minute active period to wake up the MAC? It did not.

 

 

[Mayoff]

What client version is installed?

[derringer]

I'm not able to check at the moment, but I downloaded the latest MAC version from the website for use with 7.7..

 

 

[Richy_Boy]

I couldn't even get machines to sleep after a backup - I best revisit it then as it appears to work for you derringer. (we don't have Macs)

 

Rich

[derringer]

I've done some more testing, so I wanted to report back..

 

Firstly, the MAC wake on LAN doesn't work in proactive backup either, by my testing. I can send a wake on lan packet from any pc on my network and it wakes the MAC, but Retrospect doesn't appear to ever try.

 

Secondly, on the PC side of things, the Wake on Lan wakes the PC, but doesn't wait long enough for it to boot (times out at around 40 seconds, and the machine takes 60 seconds to boot.) I've also tried it on a hibernate, which comes out in approximately 20 seconds, but Retrospect reports an error as it attempts to backup the client before the client loads all of its software backup, giving a volume not available error.)

 

What I am now doing is using Windows Scheduler with a DOS CommandLine Wake on Lan utility, which I have scheduled in windows scheduler to wake each machine a few minutes before their scheduled backups. This works, but it begs the question why 7.7 advertised "wake on LAN", if it wasn't even tested. I don't know of a circumstance where the Wake On Lan will work regularly, and it doesn't work *at all* for MAC clients, proactive or otherwise.