Is it possible to power on a PC from another location?

[Aaralli]

I'm well aware that there are all sorts of potential solutions for this, but I'm on a bit of a budget and I am making a home Minecraft server computer. I don't want to run it 24/7 but I want my friends to be able to turn it on at will. My question is, is there a reasonable way to let them power on the PC from their homes, and automatically log in and run code that starts the server going?

 

I found an item in Amazon that could do the trick possibly, but I don't know. Any thoughts? 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C7CDR86/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_TFF1YNGP3HWMB3DA9GBK?psc=1

I thought maybe u could connect this to the motherboard on/off pins somehow

[Kilrah]

I just use WiFi smart plugs and set the machines' BIOS to power up on AC restore. 

https://sonoff.tech/product/smart-plug/s26/

[Zagna]

You could do it for free with How To Set Up and Run a (Really Powerful) Free Minecraft Server in the Cloud?

[Master Disaster]

Yes it can be done, the question is do you really want it to?

[Aaralli]

21 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Yes it can be done, the question is do you really want it to?

I do. I trust the friends I plan to do this with completely and implicitly and don't mind the power bill this may incur. I'll be trying to set all of my bios settings to maximize power usage efficiency over raw performance anyway. 

[brob]

No need to reinvent the wheel. Check your BIOS for "wake on LAN". It allows a system to be brought up from a very low power state. Lots of info on the internet, including how to wake using a wide area network.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, Aaralli said:

I'm well aware that there are all sorts of potential solutions for this, but I'm on a bit of a budget and I am making a home Minecraft server computer. I don't want to run it 24/7 but I want my friends to be able to turn it on at will. My question is, is there a reasonable way to let them power on the PC from their homes, and automatically log in and run code that starts the server going?

 

I found an item in Amazon that could do the trick possibly, but I don't know. Any thoughts? 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C7CDR86/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_TFF1YNGP3HWMB3DA9GBK?psc=1

I thought maybe u could connect this to the motherboard on/off pins somehow

I use wake on LAN for a remote server I occasionally have to turn on. 
 

I use a raspberry pi, I SSH into that via a vpn, run a simple WOL command, and it’ll wake my windows PC. 
 

This may sound somewhat complicated, but if you can follow some simple steps, it’s really pretty simple. I would create a user on the pi just for WOL, give it privileges to run WOL as sudo (required I’m pretty sure), provide your friends the VPN and SSH info, open the VPN port in your router, enable WOL in the BIOS of the Minecraft sever, and your more or less done. 
 

How you actually do all of this…. Some googling and learning may be required

[Cortexian]

+1 for using the link above to setup the server on Oracle's Free Forever Cloud.

 

Minecraft (Java) is commonly exploited and unless you're very familiar with patching and keeping the server up to date, it could even be a security risk. More secure to set it up off-site on Oracle's infrastructure.

 

Oracle also has the advantage of having a datacentre network and power infrastructure. You'll never need to worry about network or power outages, and it's a good learning experience on their Cloud platform to boot.

 

You can leave this server on 24/7, or take everything a step further and investigate how to install https://pterodactyl.io/ so you can have a control panel/user accounts to let your friends turn the server on and off.

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, Zagna said:

You could do it for free with How To Set Up and Run a (Really Powerful) Free Minecraft Server in the Cloud?

I agree, this is a much better solution for your use case than running a spare PC in a corner. Even if you're running on an old laptop, the extra electricity cost per month will be more than the $0 running a 24/7 instance on Oracle Cloud would cost. Datacenter hosting also means you'll get more than enough bandwidth for everyone to connect at full speed, instead of the server getting bottlenecked by your home Internet connection's upload bandwidth.

[Chronified]

$10 smart plug and set your BIOS to "always power on after AC resume"

Just need to cycle the smart-plug remotely and the PC boots
I have a few mining rigs set up like that so I don't need to physically restart them