[Letting people join when you're offline]

Also, is there a way to force-hibernate the server while still being able to open it with /join? waiting 5 mins to test is getting on my nerves haha

[Letting people join when you're offline]

So I've searched far and wide across the forums for this. I want to be able to let my friends access my server while I can't. I've seen the posts about /join, but that doesn't work for me. On the control panel it says the server is online, but it won't connect me to my server. I used /join again, but it gives an error message. Help please? Is there an alternative?