So I want to setup a remote backup location at my parents house although they are very mindful about there electricity usage and environmental impact (and so am I) so I don’t want to have to have a pc always on when it doesn’t need to be.
Is it possible to setup remote Wake-on-lan so I can schedule my homelab at my place to wake up the server at my parents house and start a backup like once a week, I want to do this in a secure fashion as well so ideally no port forwarding, I currently use cloudflare tunnels for my home network.
Are there any other options or do you have a similar setup at your place?
You could use a very low power computer that’s always on like a Raspberry PI Zero W to send the WoL packet to the backup computer. It only uses about 1 watt. Some routers have the ability to send a WoL packet as well.
You can even use an ESP32 or similar since it just has to perform 1 tiny function.
Getting an WT32-ETH01 knockoff dev board for 15€ or PoE for 25€ and uses <300mW with the wireless modem off. You could even just use a WiFi module for 8€ if you don’t want something wired.
https://registry.platformio.org/libraries/a7md0/WakeOnLan
There is already an wakeonlan library to generate a packet very easily.
You can even do it in pseudocode with ESPHome if you have HomeAssistant
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/solved-wake-on-lan-packet-from-esp32-to-ha-server-how-to-automate/617595
Then VPN in, send a signal to the esp using one of various methods to tell it to send the packet.
this sounds like it requires another computer already turned on
Sure, but you can’t access your home network anyway if your router is turned off…
I have yet to encounter a router made in the last decade that couldn’t. Asus routers, even my 15 year old tplink archer A7 could, ubiquiti always can, openwrt, pretty sure at work we did testing with a dlink router and it also had that option.
Pretty much if you don’t use a Linksys 100Mbps router from 2005, you can at least do openvpn if not wireguard.
of course but most routers won’t do anything like this. and by router I mean the all in one devices people have, not enterprise gear.
with factory firmware?
Yep, openvpn with factory firmware. It even had a (limited) choice DDNS services for self hosting, on a cheap consumer router. I could never figure out if NAT hairpinning worked though.
Almost all routers have an “advanced” section where you get a lot if these nice options.
I have only bought a ubiquiti device in the last few years though, so I guess it is possible that routers have been enshittified like a lot of tech products with features locked behind a paywall.
Depends on your hardware. My routers can serve as a Wireguard serveur, so no need for a computer for that part
the only router firmware I have seen be able to do that is openwrt, and maybe mikrotik’s. none of these are common though, but if you can do this then yes this is a pretty efficient solution
And how do you communicate with the Pi0?
Wireguard between you and remote device like a pi. Set pi to portfowarding and masquerading on. It will then let you be on say a 10.x.x x network remotely but will send info on the remote LAN like it came from that pi local IP
Use SSH. Ether open a port in the firewall or connect it to a VPN. If the backups are done on a schedule, you could also setup a cron job on the Pi to send the WoL packet a few minutes ahead of time.
Use a VPN; don’t open up SSH to the internet.
Or just be cautious, thoughtful and sensible if you do. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
Ssh over Internet is fine as long as it’s properly setup (no password auth, root not allowed, etc.). Obviously a VPN is even better.