ETHERWAKE(8)

📦
version 1.09 · 2 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💤 ETHERWAKE(8) — the girlies' guide to waking up computers from across the room

okay bestie so real talk: this is a System Manager's Manual page, and it's about a command that yells "WAKE UP" at a sleeping computer over the network. and honestly? iconic.

✨ NAME ✨

etherwake — a tool that sends a Wake-On-LAN "Magic Packet" 💫

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

etherwake [options] Host-ID

like... that's it. one required thingy. slay.

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so this page is documenting how you use the ether-wake command, and fr fr it's a good one.

etherwake is a program that generates and transmits a Wake-On-LAN (WOL) "Magic Packet" ✨. what's it for? restarting machines that have been soft-powered-down (that's the ACPI D3-warm state, no cap, they're just napping). it builds the standard AMD Magic Packet format, and if you want, it can tuck a password in there too 🫶.

the one and only required parameter is either:

  • a station (MAC) address, or
  • a host ID that can be translated into a MAC address by an ethers(5) database — and that database is specified in nsswitch.conf(5) 👑

so yeah, you give it one thing, it handles the rest. main character energy.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

heads up queen: etherwake needs a single dash (-) in front of options. not two. don't do two. here's the full rundown:

  • -b — send the wake-up packet to the broadcast address. shout it to everybody, why not 💁‍♀️
  • -D — increase the Debug Level. turn up the drama (and the output) 📢
  • -i ifname — use interface ifname instead of the default, which is the first available interface or "eth0". pick your fave network interface 💖
  • -p passwd — append a four or six byte password to the packet. only a few adapters need or support this, so don't stress if yours doesn't. a six byte password can be given in Ethernet hex format (00:22:44:66:88:aa) or four byte dotted decimal format (192.168.1.1). a four byte password must use the dotted decimal format. rules are rules bestie 💅
  • -V — show the program version information. quick little vibe check on what you're running ⭐

🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

here's the tea on what this program hands back to you:

  • 0 on success 🎉 (ate)
  • 2 when there's a permission failure — like, say, running it as a non-root user 😭
  • 3 when you pass unrecognized or invalid parameters 🙈
  • 1 when it fails to retrieve network interface information or fails to send a packet 💀

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

arp(8) — go read that one too, iykyk

🌈 SECURITY 🌈

okay this part is lowkey serious, so listen up:

on some non-Linux systems, dropping root capability allows the process to be dumped, traced or debugged. and if someone traces this program, they get control of a raw socket. that's a lot!! Linux handles this safely, but beware when porting this program. like, please beware. 🙏

👑 AUTHOR 👑

the etherwake program was written by Donald Becker at Scyld Computing Corporation, for use with the Scyld(™) Beowulf System. legend behaviour, honestly.

💜 and that's the whole page bestie! this was Scyld's baby, dated March 31, 2003, and it lives on as ETHERWAKE(8). go wake up a computer, you got this 🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from