WOL and port security

[darrell]

Sorry for the newbie question:

We are using 3560G switches with port-security enabled.

I am trying to get Wake on Lan to work - which it does if I send the magic packet within a limited amount of time. If the pc's stay off long enough, the magic packet doesn't work.

Am I right to think that even though the mac no longer is held by the switch, that shouldn't matter because the broadcast should be flooded across all ports?

Just curious whether port-security is even a factor...

This is all across a single vlan.

Thanks in advance!!!

[dhananjoy chowdhury]

Hi,

It is true that whenever a SW recieve a frame it will add the source MAC address to the corresponding port. If the destination is unknown then the SW will then flood the frame out all other ports other than the port it was recieved.

What you can try doing is check the MAC address on the SW for the system which is doesn't work with the Magic packet.

If you don't see the MAC , make the MAC address static on that particular port and then check if WOL works.

Making static entries may not be a good solution, so port-security mac-address sticky would be better I believe.

Hope this helps.

[darrell]

Thanks very much for the response!

I think I am still confused though...I didn't think that the MAC's needed to be assigned because the broadcast will send the magic packet down all ports...

If I assign a MAC to a port and it works, then I take it that the broadcast is not working correctly or maybe that it's possibly being blocked?