Linux Wake-on-LAN worldwide

Wake-on-LAN can also work worldwide (over WAN Internet), in case a PC 10,000 km away gets turned off accidentally. To turn on a target PC from anywhere in the world, first setup the target PC and router port forwarding. For simplicity/clarity we assume the following arbitrary parameters, which will be unique for the target Linux PC:

  • target interface: eth0
  • target PC static LAN IP: 192.168.1.100
  • target public WAN IP: 1.2.3.4
  • public WoL port forward: 10009
  • target MAC: 00:11:22:33:44:55

Remote Linux PC: modern Linux distros such as Ubuntu have WakeOnLan configured in NetworkManager.

  1. Settings → Network and select the wired LAN interface to use for WakeOnLan.
  2. under the “Ethernet” tab, seee that “Wake on Lan: Default” is checked. No Wake on LAN password is needed for most use caes.
  3. copy down this “Device” hexadecimal string, this is the MAC address to turn on the PC remotely.

Confirm the correct MAC address by typing in Terminal

ip a

Have someone nearby it in case it doesn’t turn it back on–shutdown remote PC for testing.

On a laptop:

apt install wakeonlan

Wake PC on same LAN

on control PC, on the same LAN

wakeonlan 00:11:22:33:44:55

using the MAC address of the target PC of course.

If PC didn’t turn on, ensure BIOS/UEFI settings have Wake On Lan enabled. Try a discrete Intel Ethernet NIC, some motherboard NICs don’t work for Wake-on-LAN

setup worldwide Wake-on-LAN

To wake-on-LAN from anywhere in the world, using example parameters at top and after doing the procedure above, further do:

  1. Router: port forward 10009 to 192.168.1.100 port 9
  2. To use without Dynamic DNS service, have the PC auto-send email when the public IP address changes.

From the control PC on a different network type in Terminal:

wakeonlan -i 1.2.3.4 -p 10009 00:11:22:33:44:55

and target PC should power on.

Notes

Legacy Linux remote PC setup

This procedure is for older Linux distros that don’t have WakeOnLan config in NetworkManager.

Install ethtool

apt install ethtool

Add the following line to /etc/network/interfaces under the interface to control auto eth0

up ethtool -s eth0 wol g

Edit /etc/init.d/halt, changing text near top to:

NETDOWN=no

instead of yes.

Edit/create /etc/default/tlp with line

WOL_DISABLE=N

Note link/ether for eth0–this is MAC address

ip a

Reboot target PC, then shutdown target PC for testing