Wake on Lan for a Mac Mini running Leopard not working

Hi BDAqua, there is a setting for "Wake for ethernet network administrator access," and that is set to on (so it should wake). But I notice the setting is to wake for ETHERNET access, and my Mini is on wifi, not ethernet. I've done reading and it seems like it should be possible to wake a machine that is only on wifi, not ethernet, but I can't figure it out.

Any suggestions?

So I may have figured this out, at least partly. Wake on Lan (WOL) requires a network adaptor that remains connected to the router at a sufficient level to still listen for wake up calls. Ethernet adapters maintain a physical connection and hence can listen for the wake-up call (and most now are able to do that). I tested my Mini via an ethernet connection and indeed it DID wake up that way.

Wireless network adapters generally do not listen but instead turn off and disconnect from the network entirely (they give up their local IP address and are not visible on the network). Thus when you send a WOL "magic packet" to wake up the computer, it can't be seen by the network so no wake up happens. Sadly, this protocol also doesn't send a notice that the connection wasn't made, so you might sit for a while wondering if it worked. There are, apparently, SOME wifi network adapters that WILL keep listening for a wake up call via WOL, but not all do. And I have to assume the Mini's wireless adapter won't respond to WOL. I'll need a long ethernet cable to make this work.

Makes me wonder, now, if my MB Air, which has no full ethernet adapter, allows for WOL via wifi. There does appear to be a Thunderbolt-Ethernet "bridge" adapter (take a look in System Information if you have one), but I can't find a MAC address, which is typically required for WOL. Hmmmm. The plot thickens.

Thanks, Bobharris. I've read some more and what you posted confirms what I've read. I did read one post that said at least one other non-Apple router worked with WOL wireless. I'll try loading Snow Leopard on the Mini and see if I can get it to work. Bonjour Sleep Proxy is the protocol for this, from what I can tell. I can't find any info on my router to find out if it can handle this but will report back.

Hey BDAqua, that's the wifi adapter's MAC address, not a wired ethernet MAC address. I was just wondering if the MB Air has a hard-wired (ethernet) MAC address, but of course it has no ethernet port nor the card for it. So no wired ethernet MAC address that could be used for traditional WOL. But given there is the Thunderbolt option for ethernet, I wondered if there were some kind of Thunderbolt ethernet MAC address. As it happens, I just found out that a Thunderbolt to Ethernet cable/adapter will have it's own MAC address, so unless you plug in such an adapter, the MB Air won't have a "wired" ethernet MAC address for WOL.

Anyway, at this point in computer development it may be unnecessary to have a wired ethernet adapter, even for WOL. More I need to look into, but for now it's not really relevant to my problem. Thanks for the help though.

BobHarris wrote:

You do not have to have a Bonjour Sleep Proxy to wake a sleeping Mac. A Bonjour Sleep Proxy just makes it easier for the client to wake the Mac as all the client has to do is try to access one of the services being proxied, and the Bonjour Sleep Proxy will send the necessary Wake-on-LAN packets to the sleeping Mac. And if the Bonjour Sleep Proxy is your home router, then the request can come from the internet, such as Back-to-My-Mac connection requests.

I think an Apple TV will also provide a Bonjour Sleep Proxy service.

<About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy - Apple Support>

But you DO NOT need to use a Bonjour Sleep Proxy. If you are on the same LAN as the Mac mini, you can use apps such as WakeOnLan for the Mac

<http://www.readpixel.com/wakeonlan/index.html>

Which will list ALL the available devices on the home LAN, such that you do NOT need to know the MAC address.

And there are a bunch of "Wake on LAN" apps for the iPhone, many I'm sure do not need to know the MAC address either.

Hey BDAqua, that's the wifi adapter's MAC address, not a wired ethernet MAC address. I was just wondering if the MB Air has a hard-wired (ethernet) MAC address, but of course it has no ethernet port nor the card for it. So no wired ethernet MAC address that could be used for traditional WOL. But given there is the Thunderbolt option for ethernet, I wondered if there were some kind of Thunderbolt ethernet MAC address. As it happens, I just found out that a Thunderbolt to Ethernet cable/adapter will have it's own MAC address, so unless you plug in such an adapter, the MB Air won't have a "wired" ethernet MAC address for WOL.

The MAC address is part of the Ethernet chip. Since your Macbook Air does not have Ethernet, it does not have an Ethernet MAC address. BUT if you get an Ethernet adapter (USB or Thunderbolt), then the adapter has an Ethernet chip in it, and that will have a MAC address. The MAC address is NOT part of the Thunderbolt bus, nor the USB bus. It is specific to the Ethernet chip. If you have multiple Ethernet ports (or adapters), each will have its own unique MAC address.

Not unless you are trying to wake up your Macbook Air, you do not need its MAC address. The MAC address for Wake-on-LAN is needed for the sleeping Mac.

Now if you want to use Wake-on-LAN for your Macbook Air, then assuming your Macbook Air is running Snow Leopard or newer, then you should be able to use the Airport WiFi's MAC address.

But this discussion was started for the Mac mini which does have an Ethernet port and an Airport WiFi, however, it is currently running Leopard 10.5 (or so I assumes as this is the Leopard forum, and you mention maybe you could upgrade it to Snow Leopard, or Lion). And because Wake-on-LAN for WiFi needs at least Snow Leopard, you are restricted to Ethernet. Whether upgrading to Snow Leopard will allow the Mac mini to use WiFi for Wake-on-LAN is unknown. If you want to experiment, you could install Snow Leopard on an external disk, boot the Mac mini on Snow Leopard and see if it will Wake-on-LAN via WiFi when asleep using the WakeOnLan app from your Macbook Air.

By the way, I would NOT upgrade to Lion on that generation Mac mini. I a rather old Mac mini that I tried running Lion on, and it was not good. I reverted to Snow Leopard, and it is very happy now. I just use it for a backup server, and Snow Leopard has been working fine for that (but I will say I have been thinking maybe I'll replace my old Mac mini with newer hardware soon, just not yet).

And if you get the above WakeOnLan app for your Macbook Air, you will be able to see the MAC addresses for everything on your LAN, complete with whatever names can be found.

Thanks! I'm understanding more about Bonjour Sleep Proxy as I read, and your post helps clarify. It's helpful to finally have a simple, clear statement that WOL via wifi isn't possible until Snow Leopard. Now THAT's helpful. For all my reading, I never found anything that made that clear. Yes, as I posted earlier, I understand that the wired ethernet MAC address goes with the ThunderBolt adapter, not Thunderbolt, and you're right, that was a sideline to my original question, but it seemed similar since I couldn't force my wife's MB Air to wake over the LAN either. I thought it was b/c WOL only worked with wired ethernet (that's the only way I've gotten WOL to work so far), but since WOL for wifi should work, I apparently have another issue to deal with.

I've already tried the WOL program (as well as Wake Me) but since I was on wifi, they didn't work even though the Mini showed up in the list. So my next step, as you said, is to install Snow Leopard on an external drive and try it out. I'll report back if that fixes the WOL wifi issue for the Mini. I was considering 10.7/Lion because there are some hi-res audio output options I wanted to try, but if Lion isn't a good match with my old Mini, I'll probably just stick with Snow Leopard. And FWIW, the MB Airs are brand new and running El Cap.

Cheers.

Hi BDAqua. The new MB Airs don't have a wired ethernet card (no ethernet port) so no MAC for it. (No optical drive either!). You have to use a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter, and IF you have that plugged in, you will see an ethernet MAC address for that adapter. Apparently, wireless WOL (I assume that's what you mean by WoWLAN) is only supported from 10.6/Snow Leopard and later. I was using 10.5/Leopard so wireless WOL didn't work. I did get WOL to work via the ethernet on the Mini, and I'm installing Snow Leopard now so we'll see how it goes.

The Mini is now running 10.6.8 and I can now wake it and control it remotely, even over wifi. I had to remember to set both the wake on network activity AND sharing to allow screen sharing and/or remote management to get it to work, but once I remembered that, all was well. I can run the Mini as a standalone unit WITHOUT keyboard or monitor, so I can now feed my iTunes library and hi-res music to my DIY vacuum tube stereo. I have only done testing thus far but it seems to be working. Tomorrow I'll feed music from the Mini to the stereo (I work from home) and give it a real test. I'm particularly curious how hi-res will sound. My DAC can handle 32/384, so plenty of resolution there. I'm very happy everything seems to be working. I'll report back, but I assume this case is resolved.

Thanks for your help, both of you!