nvram-wakeup(8)

✨ nvram-wakeup — the manual page, but make it make sense ✨

okay bestie, so this is nvram-wakeup(8) from the NVRAM WakeUp manual. it's giving "tiny program, huge power" energy and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 💅

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💖 NAME 💖

nvram-wakeup — a (small) program that can read and write the WakeUp time in the BIOS.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

nvram-wakeup [-l|--syslog] [-D|--debug] [-A|--directisa] [-N|--nowrite]
[-d|--disable] [-s|--settime time] [-C|--configfile filename]
[-I|--iwname string] [-v|--version] [-h|--help]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So nvram-wakeup is a (small) program that can read and write the WakeUp time in the BIOS — and when I say read and write I mean via /dev/nvram on kernels >= 2.4.6, or by using direct I/O. and at that WakeUp time? the computer just powers itself on automatically from the soft-off state. no cap. it's literally waking up on its own schedule like main character energy ✨

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

If you run it with no options at all, nvram-wakeup will read the current wakeup settings from the NVRAM and print them on stdout. cute, right?

• -l, --syslog — this one makes nvram-wakeup log all output via syslogd to the system log instead of stdout/stderr. and bestie, listen: this option should always be the first one. like, first-first.
• -D, --debug — turns on printing debug messages. iykyk 🐛
• -A, --directisa — use direct I/O port access to get at the nvram instead of going through /dev/nvram. you must use this option if the configuration option upper_method is set. the device /dev/rtc is still used, don't worry.

⚠️ WARNING: if you use the option --directisa and some other programm tries to access nvram and/or rtc at the same time, you might screw up all your nvram (i.e. all CMOS settings). like, ALL of it. this is not a drill 💀

• -N, --nowrite — this disables writing into the nvram and rtc devices. but all the values for the bytes are still calculated. so write them down, go set the same date/time via BIOS Setup, run nvram-wakeup, and see if the values you written down correspond to the values set by the BIOS. detective work, slay 🔍
• -s time, --settime=time — specify the time on which the computer should be up and running. the time is specified as a time_t value, i.e., number of seconds since epoch (Jan 1 1970, 00:00:00).

See EXAMPLES below on how to set a "human readable" wakeup time.

Set time to 0 to disable the wakeup feature.

You can specify multiple -s|--settime options on the command line, as far as they all have the same time value. See EXAMPLES below.

• -d, --disable — a synonym for --settime=0. short and sweet 🍓
• -C filename, --configfile=filename — read mainboard configuration from configuration file filename.

See nvram-wakeup.conf(5) for information on the syntax of the file.

See BOARD CONFIGURATION below for general information on getting board configurations.

• -I name, --iwname=name — if the DMI entries of your mainboard are broken, you may specify a DMI infowriter name here. (it's the name of one of the functions from nvram-wakeup-mb.c)

If you specify --configfile as well as the --iwname option, then --iwname is ignored.

See BOARD CONFIGURATION below for general information on getting board configurations.

• -w minutes, --wakeupbefore=minutes — specify how many minutes before the programmed wakeuptime the computer should wake up.

The default is to start 5 minutes before the programmed wakeup time. early bird behaviour fr 🐦

• -h, --help — print a help message and exit.
• -v, --version — display version and author information.

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👑 BOARD CONFIGURATION 👑

By default, the mainboard is autodetected by reading DMI information from the BIOS. If the DMI entries are broken, you can specify the name of the infowriter to be used with the --iwname option. This only works if the board configuration is aleready compiled into the program. The list of existing infowriters can be found in the source. 👀

Example: On my Biostar M6VCG the whole DMI entry is broken (maybe a BIOS update would help, but I never tried it), but the configuration of the board is known, so only the autodetection doesn't work. Thus look up (in boards.yaml) the name of the infowriter to beused, which is 'bio_m6vcg' and call

nvram-wakeup --iwname bio_m6vcg

If nvram-wakeup doesn't know anything about your board, you can put the board configuration into a file and pass the file name via the --configfile option to nvram-wakeup. Look nvram-wakeup.conf(5) for more information on the configuration file syntax.

If you specify --configfile as well as the --iwname option, then --iwname is ignored.

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

You can specify multiple -d or -s options at the command line, but they must specify the same time, e.g.

nvram-wakeup --settime=0 -s0 -s 0 -d -ddds0  # is O.K.
nvram-wakeup -s1002722247 -s1002722247       # is O.K.
nvram-wakeup -s1002722247 -s1002722248       # is not O.K.
nvram-wakeup -s1002722247 --disable          # is not O.K.

If you want the machine to be up and running in 20 minutes, call

nvram-wakeup -s $((`date +%s` + 20 * 60))

If you want the machine to be up and running at 18:30 today, call

nvram-wakeup -s `date +%s -d "18:30"`

Note that this is really "today" so if you run this after 18:30, the time will be in the past. 🙈

If you want the machine to be up and running on a particular day, at a particular time, say at 18:30 on Apr. 23rd, call

nvram-wakeup -s `date +%s -d "Apr 23 18:30"`

For "tomorrow" you can use something like that:

nvram-wakeup -s $((`date +%s -d "18:30"` + 60*60*24))

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

1. 0 — Successful program execution. The new date and time were set successfully. 🎉
2. 1 — Successful program execution. The computer must be rebooted for the changes to take effect. 🔄
3. 2 — An error occured. Something went wrong. 😭

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🧚 FILES 🧚

• /dev/nvram — NVRAM character device. This one is used for reading/writing the nvram values if the command line option --directisa is not used.
• /dev/rtc — RTC character device. This one is used to determine if the RTC clock is running localtime or UTC/GMT. Furthermore, some motherboards use the RTC alarm time for the wakeup feature.
• /dev/mem — Memory character device. This one is used to get DMI information for board autodetection.
• nvram-wakeup.conf — Configuration file for a mainboard not supported out-of-the-box. See nvram-wakeup.conf(5) for information on the syntax of the file.

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

nvram-wakeup.conf(5)

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🌸 HOMEPAGE 🌸

http://sf.net/projects/nvram-wakeup/

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Written by Sergei Haller <Sergei.Haller@math.uni-giessen.de>.

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🔥 REPORTING BUGS 🔥

Report bugs at the bug tracking system (see HOMEPAGE) or on the mailing list nvram-wakeup-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

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💅 COPYRIGHT 💅

Copyright © 2001-2004 Sergei Haller.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

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and that's the whole thing bestie 🫶 this manual page is from the NVRAM WakeUp pages, on Linux, dated May 08 2004 — yeah it's old, but it still ate. go wake up your computer on schedule, you icon 👑✨