How to suspend the Linux system for a specific period of time remotely?

Question

I'd like to suspend or hibernate my RedHat 5 Linux system for a specific period of time. For example I'd like to suspend the system at 12:00 and wake it up at 15:00 remotely.

Is there any way to do this ?

Answer 1

Most BIOSes have RTC Alarm functionality, which will wake the computer at a set time each day. The OS itself could then put the computer into sleep/hibernate/shutdown at a set time, via cron or other.

Answer 2

You can use a cron job to perform a system shutdown at your desired time.

To start your computer again, you can use your system BIOS RTC alarm, if you have one. This can be difficult to change, so it is best if you always start up again at the same time of day.

NVRAM-WakeUp is one of a couple tools that can change the BIOS startup time from within Linux, but each motherboard will react differently. YMMV

Wake on LAN is a good solution for on-demand startups, but requires access to another computer that can send Magic Packets to your NICs hardware address. This typically means a computer on the same physical network.

Answer 3

Another possibility would be to shutdown the system using cron or stuff, and to be woken up using WakeOnLan, if the prior mentioned RTC Alarm is not availible.

Answer 4

Thanks all.

WakeOnLan works brilliantly in my Redhat Linux (IBM Lenovo) ! I used WakeOnLan client in my Windows XP machine.

Reference

http://www.tjansson.dk/?p=83

http://edvoncken.net/2011/02/configure-wake-on-lan-on-red-hat-enterprise-linux/