2014-07-09, 19:54
I see a lot of WOL problems on the threads so thought I'd share what works reliably for me.
I use W8.1 for playback in 1 room and to serve many other various clients SMB or NFS. (The following is SMB. NFS would be different) Same holds true for older O/S's. It's an everyday machine for all computing needs and not limited to just serving. This server is Ethernet into the router. All the clients are WiFi and playback/throughput is perfect streaming the largest .mkv's, .iso's, 2D, 3D, etc using a decent router and adapters. Don't assume the built in WiFi in your laptop is good enough since it's not very old! My 2007 N adapter moves more MBps then my 2014 N/AC adapter. I use LanSpeedTest Lite by Totusoft to confirm. The server can be in a complete off state and any client can start/wake it via Wake on Lan but I prefer Wake on Wan so it can be accessed from anywhere. Providing the ethernet cable is not unplugged or a power outage disabling the link has happened, this is foolproof. It can also be woke from sleep although I recommend hibernate. I set my server to hibernate after 15 mins of no activity. This obviously contains the hard drives. In windows they are set to spin down after 10 mins. There are many share settings for these drives. I use 'Everyone/Read Only' & other permissions need to be tailored to your liking. I use MKLINK to create one share folder on the server for all the actual shared folders and name it 'shares'. Z: This way is easiest on the clients and drive letters involved and only takes a few minutes to create using a command line. Power Management on the Ethernet for this server is set to Allow to turn off, Allow to Wake, Only use a Magic Packet. Many other settings depending on your chip. Use S3 in the bios. Start tightening advanced share options and firewalls only once a working system is achieved. These are the basics for the server.
Set port forwarding in your router to port 7 UDP and the IP is your server (192.168.1.2 for example). Firewall and make sure you only share your clients on your LAN. Set your wireless permissions, and mac addresses so they make the IP's static. These are the basics on the router. If your using Ethernet cable and no WiFi, apply what is needed in your hardware.
On your client(s) map the single shared MKLINK folder you created on your server. Scan this into XBMC adding the individual folders. Download WolCmd.exe http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-cmd.aspx. Create a folder named wol. Place it in root of your C:. Put the .exe in it. Create a text document in your documents folder. Rename the extension to .bat and name it XBMC. (XBMC.bat) Edit using:
@echo off
C:\wol\wolcmd (YOUR SERVER MAC ADDRESS) (YOUR ROUTER ADDRESS) 255.255.255.255 7
TIMEOUT 55 (how long it takes your server to wake from complete shutdown in seconds and connect)
set delay=10 (this is so your mapped drive has time to connect and no red X)
ping localhost -n %delay%
net use Z: \\name of your server\shares /persistent:yes
CD C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\
START XBMC.exe
EXIT
Create another .bat named WOL in your documents folder. (WOL.bat) Edit using:
@echo off
C:\wolcmd (YOUR SERVER MAC ADDRESS) (YOUR ROUTER ADDRESS) 255.255.255.255 7
EXIT
I create a shortcut to XBMC.bat and put it on a quick launch toolbar but you can put it anywhere. Then skin the icon searching for XBMC's icon. This is how you will start XBMC. These are the basics for your client(s). You could also use the Wake on Lan plug-in in conjunction with this method to confirm the server woke but it is buggy in my experience using it. I added this to the advancedsettings.xml fwiw:
<network>
<buffermode>2</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<curlclienttimeout>45</curlclienttimeout>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
</network>
<latency>
<delay>0</delay>
</latency>
Someone pointed this out to me. It may help you although it made no difference for me. Go to Start -> type in "gpedit.msc" in the run/search field. In the Local Group Policy Editor that pops up, go to "Computer Configuration" -> "Administrative Templates" -> "System" -> "Logon" -> "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon"
Double click the latter and set it to "enabled".
and you can also make a change to this one to increase the delay windows sets In the Local Group Policy Editor go to "Computer Configuration" -> "Administrative Templates" -> "System" -> "Group Policy" -> set "Startup policy processing wait time" to desired number.
Enjoy!
I use W8.1 for playback in 1 room and to serve many other various clients SMB or NFS. (The following is SMB. NFS would be different) Same holds true for older O/S's. It's an everyday machine for all computing needs and not limited to just serving. This server is Ethernet into the router. All the clients are WiFi and playback/throughput is perfect streaming the largest .mkv's, .iso's, 2D, 3D, etc using a decent router and adapters. Don't assume the built in WiFi in your laptop is good enough since it's not very old! My 2007 N adapter moves more MBps then my 2014 N/AC adapter. I use LanSpeedTest Lite by Totusoft to confirm. The server can be in a complete off state and any client can start/wake it via Wake on Lan but I prefer Wake on Wan so it can be accessed from anywhere. Providing the ethernet cable is not unplugged or a power outage disabling the link has happened, this is foolproof. It can also be woke from sleep although I recommend hibernate. I set my server to hibernate after 15 mins of no activity. This obviously contains the hard drives. In windows they are set to spin down after 10 mins. There are many share settings for these drives. I use 'Everyone/Read Only' & other permissions need to be tailored to your liking. I use MKLINK to create one share folder on the server for all the actual shared folders and name it 'shares'. Z: This way is easiest on the clients and drive letters involved and only takes a few minutes to create using a command line. Power Management on the Ethernet for this server is set to Allow to turn off, Allow to Wake, Only use a Magic Packet. Many other settings depending on your chip. Use S3 in the bios. Start tightening advanced share options and firewalls only once a working system is achieved. These are the basics for the server.
Set port forwarding in your router to port 7 UDP and the IP is your server (192.168.1.2 for example). Firewall and make sure you only share your clients on your LAN. Set your wireless permissions, and mac addresses so they make the IP's static. These are the basics on the router. If your using Ethernet cable and no WiFi, apply what is needed in your hardware.
On your client(s) map the single shared MKLINK folder you created on your server. Scan this into XBMC adding the individual folders. Download WolCmd.exe http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-cmd.aspx. Create a folder named wol. Place it in root of your C:. Put the .exe in it. Create a text document in your documents folder. Rename the extension to .bat and name it XBMC. (XBMC.bat) Edit using:
@echo off
C:\wol\wolcmd (YOUR SERVER MAC ADDRESS) (YOUR ROUTER ADDRESS) 255.255.255.255 7
TIMEOUT 55 (how long it takes your server to wake from complete shutdown in seconds and connect)
set delay=10 (this is so your mapped drive has time to connect and no red X)
ping localhost -n %delay%
net use Z: \\name of your server\shares /persistent:yes
CD C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\
START XBMC.exe
EXIT
Create another .bat named WOL in your documents folder. (WOL.bat) Edit using:
@echo off
C:\wolcmd (YOUR SERVER MAC ADDRESS) (YOUR ROUTER ADDRESS) 255.255.255.255 7
EXIT
I create a shortcut to XBMC.bat and put it on a quick launch toolbar but you can put it anywhere. Then skin the icon searching for XBMC's icon. This is how you will start XBMC. These are the basics for your client(s). You could also use the Wake on Lan plug-in in conjunction with this method to confirm the server woke but it is buggy in my experience using it. I added this to the advancedsettings.xml fwiw:
<network>
<buffermode>2</buffermode>
<cachemembuffersize>0</cachemembuffersize>
<curlclienttimeout>45</curlclienttimeout>
<readbufferfactor>4.0</readbufferfactor>
</network>
<latency>
<delay>0</delay>
</latency>
Someone pointed this out to me. It may help you although it made no difference for me. Go to Start -> type in "gpedit.msc" in the run/search field. In the Local Group Policy Editor that pops up, go to "Computer Configuration" -> "Administrative Templates" -> "System" -> "Logon" -> "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon"
Double click the latter and set it to "enabled".
and you can also make a change to this one to increase the delay windows sets In the Local Group Policy Editor go to "Computer Configuration" -> "Administrative Templates" -> "System" -> "Group Policy" -> set "Startup policy processing wait time" to desired number.
Enjoy!
