Wake up your computer(s) with a simple email using a Raspberry Pi

Introduction

I have a Spotify Premium subscription but I also have a few CDs which are not available on streaming services. I don’t like the whole process of syncing files, that’s why I took a Spotify subscription in the first place. Google offers a solution with Play Music : you can upload up to 20,000 songs to their servers for free and stream them to all of your devices. I didn’t use this because the Google Play Music app was too slow for my previous phone (Google Nexus S ). So I decided to put my CDs on a computer and use that computer as a server with Tonido . This way I could stream my music over the Internet to all of my devices. As a plus I could also put all my photos on this device so that I could show them to friends or family wherever I am.

Because this was just a standard computer this would cost a lot of electricity while I wouldn’t use it 90% of the time. I would only need it when I wanted to listen to a song I own which isn’t available on Spotify. That’s why I came up with this idea.

I want my computer to be available when I need it and to be in standby mode when I don’t need it. This way the computer boots up in a few seconds when I wake it up. I want to be able to wake it up from all over the world. I have a Raspberry Pi which is always on and doesn’t require much power . So I created a way to send an email to a certain address which then wakes up my computer within the minute.

Requirements

working Raspberry Pi (or similar device with Linux and python) with a constant connection to the Internet
the computer you want to wake up and your Raspberry Pi need to be in the same local network
Email account (preferably Gmail or an unused mailbox)

Setup

On the computer

Make sure the computer goes to sleep when you don’t use it. In Windows you can find this setting by searching for power. I have my computer set to go to sleep after 3 hours of inactivity. If you have trouble putting your computer to sleep you can analyze the problems using the powercfg command .
Make sure the computer wakes upon receiving a magic packet. This is a special type of TCP or UDP unicast packet that is processed by the BIOS and wakes up a computer. This also works if the computer is not in standby mode. You probably have to change a setting in your BIOS (press one of the F-buttons at boot time) and in your NIC’s settings. You can view your NIC’s settings in Windows using Device Management .
Find the MAC address of the connected network adapter.

In your Gmail account

Create a new filter for a specific email address. You can use yourusername**+anythingyouwant**@gmail.com

Search for to:theaddressyouchoose
Click on the little arrow left to the search button
Click on the link to create a new filter in the pop-up that appears
Check the following options: skip inbox, mark as read, label new label, never send to spam, never mark as important
Enable IMAP (Settings > Forwarding & POP/IMAP > Enable IMAP)

On your Raspberry Pi

I assume you know how to log in to your Raspberry Pi in command line, over SSH or directly. There is a lot of documentation available on their website.

Install the wakeonlan package using the following command: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install wakeonlan
Use nano or another text editor to create the following file: wakeonlan 01:23:45:67:89:AB 01:23:45:67:89:AB being the MAC address of the computer you want to wake up with your email. Name the file anynameyouwant*.sh*.
Create another file:

 1import imaplib
 2import os
 3mail = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
 4mail.login('YOUR [email protected]', 'YOUR PASSWORD')
 5answer = mail.select('THE LABEL YOU CHOOSE')
 6if int(answer[1][0]) > 0:
 7  os.system('THE PATH TO THE FILE YOU CREATED IN STEP 2')
 8  mail.store("1:*",'+X-GM-LABELS', '\\Trash')
 9mail.close()
10mail.logout()

Replace all the words in capitals and name the file anythingyouwant*.py*
Use crontab -e to edit the crontab file. Scroll to the bottom and add the following line: * * * * * /usr/bin/python PATH TO THE FILE YOU CREATED IN STEP 3
Save the file using CTRL+X

Done!

Now you can send an email to the address you choose in the Gmail part above and your computer will wake up within the minute!