Wake on Lan - How & Why

[0iD]

Just got myself a couple of these & they have 'Wake on Lan' capabilities (as do most mobo's these days). So I was just wondering what is the purpose of Wake on Lan?

[Paul Adams]

For large networks (universities, corporations) you can allow the clients to be turned on remotely by sending a specially-crafted packet on the network.

Then you could have software deployment agents, or maybe a computer policy in AD used to install patches or whatever at some ungodly hour in the morning and you know that so long as a machine has power and a LAN connection, it will be updated for the next time it is used.

When I was at uni you would often see the machines booting up or rebooting and having their disks wiped & rebuilt (so if you installed any software yourself on a workstation it would be gone by the next day).

[0iD]

When I was at uni you would often see the machines booting up or rebooting and having their disks wiped & rebuilt (so if you installed any software yourself on a workstation it would be gone by the next day).

Would be handy with some of the numpties at this place thinking they can install sh*t like Kazaa & get away wih it.

[ajbrun]

For large networks (universities, corporations) you can allow the clients to be turned on remotely by sending a specially-crafted packet on the network.

I'm not sure if I have any use for this, but how do you create a "specially-crafted packet"?

[Atomic]

'you' as such dont, ud use it in conjunction with a bit of software that does whatever function your after to do it for you.

[0iD]

Could I then send a command from my pc @ work to my home pc to switch on so I could access it? I take it i'd have to create a secure link between the two...

[Paul Adams]

Found this intro guide on WOL:
http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software...an/mini-howto/

And it has a small list of Windows-compatible tools and scripts:
http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software...o-3.html#ss3.2

Never used it myself, software deployment was never that interesting to me so I left it to a colleague

I assume that depending on the implementation you used, you would need to forward the UDP port in question to your PC on your router, then you fire the magic packet at your public IP and it contains the MAC of your target PC.