Knowledge Base

Description of the Wake-on-LAN technology as implemented in the advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10

This article applies to:

• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server
• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server - Small Business Server Edition
• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Workstation
• Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server - Virtual Edition

Description

Wake-on-LAN (WoL) technology is implemented in the advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.

WoL is an Ethernet computer networking standard that allows a shut-down computer to be turned on remotely. Most modern motherboards with an embedded Ethernet controller support WoL. Wake-on-LAN must be enabled in the Power Management section of the motherboard's BIOS. It may also be necessary to configure the computer to reserve power for the network card when the system is shut down.

Here is a step-by-step scenario of the WoL procedure:

The target computer is shut down, but power remains reserved for the network card. The network card listens for the incoming packets and reacts on a specific packet, called the magic packet.
When the network card receives such packet, it checks if the packet is correct. If the magic packet is valid, the network card sends Power On (PWON) signal to the power management system.

The support of WoL is implemented in Acronis Management Server, which is a component of the advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. You can enable WoL in the Advanced settings when creating a backup policy to run on schedule in Acronis Management Server:

With this setting, Acronis Management Server will send a magic packet to the remote computer network interface card (NIC) before starting the backup if the computer does not respond to pings.

This will power on the computer for running the backup task. Once the backup procedure is over, the computer is shut down again.

Before using the feature, make sure that WoL is enabled both in BIOS of the target computer and in options of the backup policy on Acronis Management Server.

More information

The magic packet is a broadcast frame, transmitted over port 0, or 7 or 9. It can be sent over a variety of connectionless protocols (UDP, IPX). UDP is the most commonly used one. Data in a magic packet is a defined constant as represented in hexadecimal: FF FF FF FF FF FF followed by sixteen repetitions of the target computer's MAC address, possibly followed by a four or six byte password.

See also Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Fails to Start a Scheduled Task On Wake-on-LAN.