"Wake On LAN" - Wake from power off or sleep only?

I'm use to sending a Wake ON LAN to a Dell server running Linux. As
long as the BIOS configuration is set and the ethtool command is done,
the Dell Server will power on once it gets the WOL message.

On the Macintoshes, Mac G4 and a Mac Pro, while I have been able to
wake them using WOL from an actual sleep state, I can't wake them from
power off as done with the Dell sever.

Q: Is it possible to turn a Macintosh on from power off via WOL? If
so, what needs to be done for this to happen?

Q: How do you cause a Macintosh to go to sleep using WOL? Does this
require any sort of settings on the Mac in Sharing for example be set?

Thanks!

Edward

 

Thanks for your helpful posting!

Edward

 

You need to have a server, not a consumer machine. The Xserves behave as
you were describing.

Apple have rolled this feature into what they called 'Lights Out
Management' (LOM) as described here

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304870>

Basically the computer has a processor (not part of the CPU) and ethernet
port dedicated to handing lots of control and monitoring functions which
can be handled across the ethernetwork. Not only does this give you
startup and shutdown but also monitoring of temperature, disk space,
whether someone is trying to open the case, and a bunch of other things.

Simon.