Wake on Lan troubles

[Elena]

Hi,
please be patient with me cos I'm new, I have zero knowledge of unix but I'd like to solve this problem with your help, if possible...

I just setup my file server on a Supermicro X7DAL-E with Xeon 5060 (2x Intel gigabit), 2x1 TB HDDs (by now, just to start with something, configured as ZFS Mirror) and 16 GB ECC Ram. By now I'm useing it for SMB shares only. I installed n4f (11.0.0.4) embedded on a dedicated 16 GB SSD.

One of my dreams was that of being able to let the server go into sleep/suspend mode after some time of inactivity (maybe 30 to 60 minutes), and then having it automatically resume works as soon as there's network traffic for it - but now I'm almost convinced this is going to remain a mere fantasy... or in the best case, I shall still work hard to achieve that.

Well, let's specify that I have enabled ACPI, S3 mode in the bios. There are not any WOL options in my bios though, but I suppose WOL IS actually activated and working from a hardware viewpoint (read on). I also have activated WOL in n4f , Network/LAN Management (btw, question: I have set it to ON, but which is the difference between ON, MCAST, UCAST and MAGIC ???)
Problem is, apparently n4f does enter sleep mode if I enter the command manually (by WebGui) acpiconf -s 3 (a pity there's not a way to do that automatically, but I have still to try out those Fritz scripts I found somwhere...). BUT, when I try to reactivate it sending a WOL magic packet, the machine only turns the fans on at maximum speed, the power led stops blinking and stays on, but nothing else happens: the screen remains black, the webgui does not work and the machine does not even respond to pings anymore (it seems it entered an "altered coscience state" or such a thing lol). It seems pretty frozen in that state with the fans spinning at max speed, and the ONLY way to exit that state unfortunately is powering it off the hard way.

So I ask: is this a known issue ? How can I attempt to fix it ?
Any suggestion would be highly appreciated, thanks in advance

[Elena]

Sorry, insisting is not my habit but is it possible that nobody can help or comment on this problem/bug ?
I don't want to blame anybody, I understand that with being nas4free a big piece of software for FREE one should just thank and avoid moaning, but I'm only kindly asking to elaborate on whether this issue I'm complaining of is a known bug and there aren't any hopes to see it fixed, or perhaps I have some chances to overcome it and how...

Also, I'd be glad if somebody would at least explain me the difference between (in Network/LanManagement) ON, WOL_UCAST, WOL_MCAST and WOL_MAGIC, cos they are NOT COVERED in the docs (well, I couldn't find them at least) !

Try to understand me... I had the hardware listed in my previous message for free or almost, and it was perfect for setting up a n4f server, with the only little drawback that it consumes an insane amount of power (150-180 W IDLING !) that's why handling power intelligently was my first concern.
Actually, I DID have many other spare mobos around (7 to 10 years old) which I could repurpose for a NAS, and which honestly consume a fraction of that power idling... but by reading all the forums and tutorials I could find around, I pretty understood that 1) if I want to warrant my data a minimum amount of security against corruption/failures, I must go ZFS and 2) if I want to go ZFS, I can forget slow cpus, I can forget non ECC ram, I can forget having less than 4 GB RAM, better if I have a server mobo rather than a general purpose one, blah blah... so ok at the end I had the proper hardware but it draws so much power that not being able to handle ACPI properly is an innury IMHO !
And turning it on and off manually everytime I need to access my storage is out of question LOL

Can somebody tell me whether sleep/WOL are supported by FreeNas at least ? In that event I can even plan to let go of n4f and focus on FreeNas instead...

Thanks again and forgive me if I am insisting.

[Snufkin]

...my dreams was that of being able to let the server go into sleep/suspend mode after some time of inactivity

Here is NAS4Free developer's answer to your 1st question.

[Elena]

If u mean this:
"Suspend mode should not be used at all by design.
Either you shutdown or run 24/7"
well, what a pity. Such a wonderful piece of software without energy efficiency in mind...
I dunno why this is not stated explicitely in the documentation though.
Also, from the same thread u pointed:
"I also used suspend mode but stopped using it and now use shutdown/boot
Works very well as booting is quick and you can automatically suspend and resume the VM's (with a small change to the vbox script)"
I give up at the second part cos as I said I'm not expert and I dunno what a VM is about, but the poster is pretty saying that he is just... powering on and off the server manually upon needs ?
Or rather he means that there is a way for having it power on and power off automatically ? Sorry I can't get it.
I'm wondering cos actually booting N4F is everything but fast... even on a dedicated SSD drive it still takes at least 1 minute to boot (here). Or it's me who overlooked somethings ?!

Also, I'm sure that I had found a thread where the poster (who later even wrote a turorial in German) apparently could manage to make suspend mode working but I failed to contact him... but his MOBO had ACPI S4 support and that did the trick (IIRC) while mine has just S1 and S3...
A pity such topics aren't covered clearly and officially, expecially for "plain" users (not gurus) like me

[b0ssman]

the main problem is that wakeonlan in freebsd is not very well supported. lots of problems with different hardware.

thats why i say get ipmi if you need wake on lan features because that is os independant.