How to Configure FTP for Wake on LAN

The Wake on Lan (WoL) feature is one that is present in some types of computer motherboards, particularly in Web server motherboards that run the Linux operating system. If your Web server is running an FTP server and you only want the computer to be fully powered on when someone tries to access the FTP server, you can configure the FTP server on your Linux server to talk to the WoL feature of the motherboard. This causes the computer to power up when someone connects to the FTP server, then the computer powers back down once the FTP server access is complete.

Instructions

1. Log in to the server as the root (administrator) user.

2. Type (in the command line) "vim /etc/init.d/ftp_conf" and press "Enter." This opens the FTP configuration file in a text editor.

3. Change the "wakeOnLanSupport=0" line in the configuration file to read "wakeOnLanSupport=1" to enable WoL in the FTP server.

4. Change the next line in the configuration file from "#wakeOnLanTTL=4000" to "wakeOnLanTTL=100" and then press "CTRL" and "X" to save and exit the file.

5. Type "/etc/init.d/ftp restart" and press "Enter" to restart the FTP server process and complete the configuration.

References

• "Linux Network Administrator's Guide"; Tony Bautts, Terry Dawson, and Gregor N. Purdy; 2005