Highub – IT Web Tips

To set up your Ubuntu system for Wake-on-LAN (WOL, WoL) is easy and straight forward.

1. Go to your BIOS, and turn on WakeOnLAN (it varies, look for it or one with similar name). If your network card is onboard, go to step 2b, otherwise, go to step 2a first.

2. Back in Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, we now need to write a script that will run every time the computer is on, because this command only lasts until the computer is turned on once again.

2a. Find out what network device you want to have the computer wake-able from, usually all, which is just one. If you have more network devices in your system, 9 chances out of 10, you already know what they are called.
You can NOT wake up a laptop or desktop that is only connected via wireless with Wake-on-LAN, unless the BIOS has a method for this, this is rarely the case, and I do not guarantee this will work in such cases.

In your terminal, type:

ifconfig

You’ll get something like: (I have removed my mac address for security)

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 01:23:45:67:89:ab
          inet addr:192.168.1.2  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe6f:3487/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:71495 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:76190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:23164212 (22.0 MiB)  TX bytes:7625016 (7.2 MiB)
          Interrupt:217 Base address:0xd400

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1290 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1290 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:161182 (157.4 KiB)  TX bytes:161182 (157.4 KiB)

So, I want this system to be ‘wakable’ from eth0.

2b. Now we create the script.
Take note that you must be an administrator of the system you are doing this to.

sudo -i

Enter your password at the prompt. Change to the startup script directory and start editing a new file:

cd /etc/init.d/
pico wakeonlanconfig

Paste or type this into the file, replacing eth0 with your network device, repeat the ethtool line as many times for your devices before the exit line:

#!/bin/bash
ethtool -s eth0 wol g
exit

Set the permission of the file:

chmod a+x wakeonlanconfig

Make the script run on startup:

update-rc.d -f wakeonlanconfig defaults

You should see the terminal responds with something like:

Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/wakeonlanconfig ...
   /etc/rc0.d/K20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc1.d/K20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc6.d/K20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc2.d/S20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc3.d/S20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc4.d/S20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig
   /etc/rc5.d/S20wakeonlanconfig -> ../init.d/wakeonlanconfig

Now we finish by running it, and making sure there is no error.

/etc/init.d/wakeonlanconfig

This should produce no output and put you right back at the prompt you started at.

3. Use it. you’ll need something to send Wake-on-LAN packets with, “wakeonlan” is in the repositories. And you’ll need the mac address of the system.

To get your MAC address, on the same system you just enabled WOL on, type:

ifconfig | grep HW

It is the thing that looks like 01:23:45:67:89:ab , write it down.
turn off that system:

sudo halt

If your using wakeonlan from the repositories, and you are on the same network as the computer your tying to wake up, replace 01:23:45:67:89:ab with your mac address and do, from another computer:

wakeonlan 01:23:45:67:89:ab

In most cases, you could send wake on LAN packets from a wireless connected computer.
If that doesn’t work, its likely the port on the system your trying to wake up isn’t the default (9), try 7, or if your BIOS settings or book told you one, use that one.

wakeonlan -p 7 01:23:45:67:89:ab

If that STILL doesn’t work, make sure wakeonlan is enabled in your BIOS and your hardware supports it.