etherwake -- etherwake - send a Wake-On-LAN Magic Packet

SYNOPSIS

etherwake -bpP [-b broadcast address] [-p password] [-P port] [mac_addr]

etherwake Etherwake is a shell script wrapper around netcat. It sends a Magic Wake-On-LAN packet, (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN) optionally containing a password for those few cards that require it, and will cause the receiving machine to wake up. Often used before an RDP connection in order to ensure that the server is awake and responding.

Options

-b: The Macic Packet is a UDP broadcast and so the subnect containing the mac_address must be known and specified here.
-p: Some network cards require a password before responding to a macgic packet and waking up. This option is not yet implemented as currently PTC has no such cards with which to test.
-P: UDP port on the target mac_address within the broadcast address specified. The default is 7. UDP Port 9 is also commonly used.
-?: Prints out etherwake help.

EXAMPLES

Wake up a machine at ip address 192.168.1.5 Wake-On-LAN magic packets require a broadcast address and a mac address. So you must know the mac address before the machne goes to sleep. So while it is awake you can ping the machine and save off the mac address from the arp cache. You will also need to know that ip address' broadcast address or calculate it from the network mask. In this case we use a classic class C address with netmask 255.255.255.0 and so the broadcast address is 192.168.1.255.

$ ping 192.168.1.5
...
$ arp -a 192.168.1.5
	Internet Address      Physical Address      Type
	192.168.1.5           00-21-70-c2-c1-88     dynamic
...
$ etherwake -b 192.168.1.255 00:21:70:c2:c1:88
Magic packet sent to 00:21:70:c2:c1:88
$

DIAGNOSTICS

Possible exit status values are passed through from netcat

PORTABILITY

All UNIX systems. Windows 10. Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2019. Windows 11. Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2025.

LIMITS

The ability to wake from a hybrid shutdown state (S4) or a fully powered off state (S5) is unsupported in Windows 8 and above, and Windows Server 2012 and above. This is because of a change in the OS behavior which causes network adapters to be explicitly not armed for WOL when shutdown to these states occurs. WOL from a sleep state (S3) or non-hybrid hibernation state (S4) is supported.

There are frequently BIOS configuration settings that need to be set before Wake-on-LAN will work, and on some machines a BIOS upgrade may be required before this will function as expected.

AVAILABILITY

PTC MKS Toolkit for Power Users
PTC MKS Toolkit for System Administrators
PTC MKS Toolkit for Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Interoperability
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers 64-Bit Edition
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition

etherwake
etherwake - send a Wake-On-LAN Magic Packet

Command