Q&A

How to send WoL magic packets under Linux?

How to send WoL magic packets under Linux?

Red Hat Linux and friends users should use the net-tools package, which may be installed by default. The command name is ether-wake. How Do I Send WOL Magic Packets Under Linux?

How does a wake on LAN magic packet work?

Wake-on-LAN and the Magic Packet The format of a Wake-on-LAN (WOL) magic packet is defined as a byte array with 6 bytes of value 255 (0xFF) and 16 repetitions of the target machine’s 48-bit (6-byte) MAC address. (See Wikipedia article) Wake-on-LAN works by broadcasting the magic packet to all network devices in a network.

How to write the WoL magic packet byte array?

The WOL magic packet is a byte array with 6 bytes of value 255 and then 16 repetitions of the MAC address. If you wanted to write this entirely out by hand, the byte array would look something like this:

Can a magic packet be sent to a computer?

Some simple explanation on WOL. Some devices support sleep/hibernate modes where the device (PC, etc) can be woken by a so-called magic packet on the ethernet (or wireless) interface. This tool can send this magic packet.

Is there a way to enable WOL on Linux?

This is a quick guide to enable WOL under RHEL / Fedora / CentOS / Debian / Ubuntu Linux. It would be best if you used software to send WoL magic packets to the target system. You will find various tools for all modern oses, including MS-Windows, Apple macOS/OS X, Linux, and many smartphones.

How does wake on LAN work in Ubuntu?

Wake-on-LAN enables users to turn on a computer across a network from another network device. It can be very useful in situations where computers are not all next to each other or there are a lot of machines. WoL works by sending a packet of data called a Magic Packet™ to the target machine.

How does WOL work on a Windows 10 computer?

WoL works by sending a packet of data called a Magic Packet™ to the target machine. When the packet is received, the target machine’s network device (Network Interface Controller or NIC) wakes-up the rest of the machine.