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Snow Leopard extends Wake-on-LAN feature... if your config is right

It's been a stealth feature of modern Macs for years: the ability of a sleeping machine to respond to a 'magic packet' delivered over Ethernet and wake up on command, either triggered by a specialized app or by Apple Remote Desktop. Handy, especially for administrators who might need to access remote and sleeping workstations, but as the world has moved more toward wireless networking the Wake-On-LAN capability became gradually less relevant.

Now, as Macworld explains, the ability to wake sleeping Macs remotely has been extended in two vital ways with Snow Leopard as a new feature called Wake on Demand. First, the new OS allows sleeping machines to hand off Bonjour broadcast tasks (advertising services like printer sharing, web sharing, iPhoto & iTunes libraries, etc.) to an Airport Extreme base station or Time Capsule, letting the machine's services appear always-on even if the actual Mac is asleep; the Mac will wake remotely when needed by a client. This alone will allow multi-Mac homes to sleep their machines more often, saving energy and aggravation.

The second feature requires that you pair your recent-vintage Airport with a recent Mac model (all 2009 versions, and possibly some 2008 models as well): you can wake the machine over Wi-Fi, rather than just over Ethernet. If you go to System Profiler, to the Network section and the Airport data sheet -- look for a line that says "Wake on Wireless." If it's there, you've got the capability. Your mileage may vary but it's certainly fun to try waking up your machine remotely over the WLAN -- or, for fun, your spouse's machine, just to watch them jump.

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Wireless Snow Leopard

It's been a stealth feature of modern Macs for years: the ability of a sleeping machine to respond to a 'magic packet' delivered over...
 

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bollee23

I have experienced more or less the same issue than cdogg : when the "wake on demand" option is checked, and I put my iMac to sleep, few hours later it wakes up with ODD fan running at full speed. In this case I have to force sleep again for stop fan.

November 07 2009 at 4:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
D.J.

I got a little nuts and put a new 2009 MacPro's Airport card into a late 2007 mini - this was mainly to up the speed to 802.11n, but this feature is something I'm really interested in using as well.
Problems arose however. The new airport card works fine in the order Core 2 Duo Mini, and if I look in the System Profiler, it lists the new card as supporting Wake on Wireless. I flipped "Wake for network access" on via the Energy Saver settings, and yep, sure enough... it does broadcast the services of the mini while it's asleep. iTunes and the Mini via the Finder both show up.
It gets weird if I try to actually use them however. Basically, it won't work, and I'm having trouble nailing down the reason. It sits there looking for the services on the machine for a while and eventually times out. Meanwhile, obviously, the mini hasn't woken up on the other end.
I'm hoping there's not some hardware compatibility necessary beyond the Airport card itself, but as of yet, that's all I can really assume is the issue: that Apple's not listed some other necessary component to enable this.
In any event the Airport Extreme's "magic packet" is either not sending at all, or there's something in the older mini that won't interpret it maybe? I don't know.
Figured I'd toss it out there in case someone else has any ideas.

September 22 2009 at 4:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Trav

Not sure if anyone's noticed this if you have this feature enabled you can now wake your Mac by opening the iPhone Remote app. Handy if you have your Mac hooked up for media playback, or if you want wake your computer to use a VNC client etc. :)

September 01 2009 at 9:14 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
alv

There is also online Wake-On-LAN that can also be used with Mac. It is available at http://www.wakeonlan.me

August 31 2009 at 8:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
William

"It's been a stealth feature of modern Macs for years: the ability of a sleeping machine to respond to a 'magic packet' delivered over Ethernet and wake up on command"

This has also been a feature of PCs for years, in addition to Wake-on-Wireless; I only say this because your decision to say "modern Macs" versus "modern computers" can be interpreted to imply that PCs don't do this.

August 31 2009 at 1:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tom

This is a huge feature!! I can only imagine how many machines are running day and night because of unreliable sleep/wake-up or because they want remote access to their stuff. Back-to-my-mac finally becomes a viable option now.

This will save a lot of energy if it works reliable and can be trusted!

August 30 2009 at 6:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ratkat

Works fine on mid 2007 iMac as well

August 29 2009 at 7:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
TR

I’ve only seen 2009 — and now 2008 — models mentioned, but my late-2007 iMac works too. Not a mid-2006 MacBook though.

August 29 2009 at 5:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to TR's comment
cycomachead

I wonder if it has to do with the Airport chipset most likely. I've got a 2007 MacBook that's my sister's that isn't supported, but has 802.11n

August 29 2009 at 8:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ben

Is there a feature called Wake-When-I-Plug-In-A-MacBook-Even-Though-It's-Closed? Better yet, is there a way to turn that off? I'm trying to prevent a MBP from waking every time I want to charge the battery.

August 29 2009 at 5:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to Ben's comment
NoAndThen

I can't get my unibody macbook to keep broadcasting my itunes library. I have a Time Capsule... is there a setting I need to change?

This article makes it seem like it's automatic, but I've yet to see this be the case. Any help here folks?

Thanks!

August 29 2009 at 4:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to NoAndThen's comment
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