Hey everyone! I'm looking for some guidance on using Wake on LAN (WoL) to wake up a device from outside my home network while connected to a VPN. I'm not super experienced with router settings, VPNs, or WoL.
I have a device (let's call it Device A) with a static IP address of 192.168.1.99, and I'm trying to wake it up using my iPhone (Device B) which connects to the VPN. The WoL app on my iPhone works perfectly within my home WiFi, but once I connect to the VPN, it seems to have issues waking Device A.
When I connect my iPhone to the VPN, it gets assigned the IP address 10.8.0.6. I'm wondering if this subnet difference is causing the problem. Should I change Device B's VPN settings to match Device A's network? Any advice on how to solve this? Thanks!
2 Answers
You're spot on about WoL needing to be on the same subnet. If your iPhone is on the 10.8.0.0 subnet, it can't communicate with Device A on the 192.168.1.0 subnet. You might consider changing your VPN settings to mirror Device A's subnet if that's possible. Alternatively, remote KVM solutions could provide a way to power on Device A without needing WoL. It's worth exploring other options for waking up your device if WoL isn't feasible.
Unfortunately, you can't wake up devices across different subnets because WoL operates on the local network. When your iPhone is connected to the VPN, it loses contact with your local network. It's as if you're tunneling out into the internet. A quick fix is to disable the VPN temporarily to send the WoL command to Device A. But if that doesn't work for you, using DDNS might be your best bet, though it can introduce other security concerns.
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