Internet via fast router, Wake on Lan via slow

Why do I need to use two routers

It is no secret that the Internet in our time is becoming available at more and more space speeds. An old router similar to my Dir-300 could no longer pull a channel with a new 60 Mbit tariff, and the question arose of buying a new device, the role of which fell on the shoulder of the new WNDR4000. I will not bore you with further details and go straight to the most interesting ... No, not to the tests, which are already quite a few, but to such an interesting question as setting Wake on Lan on a home computer park.

There are a lot of different articles on the Internet, how to do this through your router, and everything would be fine, but only they all rest on one very significant circumstance. The router must support the forwarding of the external port to the broadcast of the internal network. And it should be noted, not all routers are capable of it.

But what about alternative firmware, you ask? Yes, the same DD-WRT really solves the problem. But in new powerful routers, alternative firmware leads to a downright catastrophic performance drop. Is it worth it for the opportunity of WOL to lose the benefits of a good, specially acquired router? The question is sad. But as it turned out there is an interesting solution.

The idea is simple - on the network you need to have a round-the-clock device that acts as a server for only one task - to allow a remote user to run the magic package for Wake on Lan on the broadcast of the internal network. A powerful router is not required to break. The question remains of choosing such a device.
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Yes, I also considered installing a remote control card for a small home server. And to my surprise, I found an instance, which is perfectly installed in the PCI slot - Aten IP8000. However, there are two "but." The price is about 9000 at the time of this writing, which personally seems to me an unreasonably large amount (actually the price of a small home server), and size. The board will not fit in a regular mini-itx case, having dimensions of about 15 by 12 cm. For comparison, the case of my mini-server is only 10 cm wide.

Next, I became interested in Micro Servers on an ARM type GuruPlug Server. Stuck certainly interesting. But it’s not so practical - many people complain about heating, and it’s not so cheap to ship to Russia. For such a simple and obscure task as Wake on Lan is too difficult, and a little expensive. The next step - sockets with Ethernet-control - is also not particularly cheap (from 3000r), although it is already more like an optimal solution.

But can you still do better? As it turned out, there is a simple and cheap solution.

Our option is two routers

After all, you still have an old low-power router? If not, then it does not matter, the price of the national model, for example dir-300, will be about 800-900 r, which is several times cheaper than all the previously considered options. And he perfectly solves the problem. In addition, the 2nd router, even if weak, never hurts - it will also be a spare, in case of a major problem with the main one.

The scheme is as follows: You leave the new router and all devices connected to the LAN ports in their places. We only need one free LAN port. We will connect the WAN port of a weak router with a cable (of course, if you wish, you can use any one that is compatible with good firmware). On a weak router, we install the firmware that supports sending Wake on Lan - a packet to an external network (for example, DD-WRT). I will not describe here in detail the installation process, on the website dd-wrt.com has everything you need, it is also easy to find the relevant articles in Russian.



Then, in a weak router, the ability to log in from outside to the web interface is activated, if possible we use the https protocol instead of http. Next you need on an external, powerful router to set the issue of a fixed IP via DHCP to our low-power router alarm clock. It remains only to forward the port for the interface of the weak router in the settings of the powerful, by itself the external port is better not to use the standard one.

I also recommend keeping the mac of your home server - dd-wrt, for example, sometimes inclined to forget about its WOL-patients in the external network, then you have to drive the mac into its web interface manually. That's all. To use this system, you just need to log in from the browser via https or http — depending on the settings of the weak router — to our flash device, run the Magic Package from there to the main network with the mac address of our server — and it's done.

I hope someone helped this review. Personally, I spent a lot of time studying all the details, although in the end the installation of the entire farm took only 15 minutes - the trick was to know exactly what to do.