Making a Linux home server sleep on idle and wake on demand – the simple way (dgross.ca)

Article summary

The article describes a method to configure a Linux home server to sleep on idle and wake on demand. This is achieved by enabling wake-on-LAN with unicast packets, setting up a cron job to sleep on idle, and using an ARP Stand-in service to respond to ARP requests on behalf of the sleeping server. The author also disables IPv6 to ensure the solution works. The goal is to reduce power consumption while still allowing the server to be accessible when needed.

Main themes

• Linux power management
• low-power servers
• wake-on-LAN
• ARP Stand-in
• alternative hardware
• self-hosting
• power consumption reduction

What commenters say

• Some users have successfully implemented low-power servers using alternative hardware such as smartphones or mini PCs.
• Linux power management is still buggy and prone to issues like suspend and resume problems.
• The lack of demand for Linux on average PC hardware means that power management features like sleep and wake are not well-supported.
• Using a router running OpenWRT can be a good solution for always-on machines and can also help with detecting demand for the server.
• Low-powered PCs are a viable option for self-hosting and can be found with desktop-grade CPUs that consume minimal power.
• There is a need for a chip that combines low power consumption with high PCIe IO and RAM capacity.
• Some users have had success with using powertop and TLP to reduce power consumption on their servers.