Wake Other Computers from Mac OSX

Question

Is there a terminal command within Mac OSX that will allow me to use WOL (Wake On LAN) to wake up other computers? Windows has wolcmd, is there an equivalent within OSX?

I am trying to wake a computer from my rMBP, within my network. My rMBP is connected via WiFi normally, but can also be connected via Thunderbolt GbE connector. The target computer is a Windows machine that I want to wake up before I connect to it using a remote desktop connection.

Answer 1

Install the wakeonlan package using Homebrew:

$ brew install wakeonlan

(It's a Perl script for waking up computers via Wake-On-LAN magic packets.)

When installed, you can send a "magic packet" from your Terminal to any device using its IP (Internet Protocol) and MAC (Media Access Control) address.

Here's an example of a typical use:

$ wakeonlan -i 192.168.1.255 -p 1234 01:02:03:04:05:06

The scripts takes 2 arguments, the MAC address of the NIC, and an IP address.

Note: The IP address argument is tricky and isn't what you'd think.

For a NIC on your local subnet, use the broadcast-address of this subnet. (e.g. subnet 192.168.10.0 with netmask 255.255.255.0, use 192.168.10.255)

For example, I have a Synology NAS manually configured with the IP address of 10.0.1.100 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a router address of 10.0.1.1.

The correct IP address to use is not that of the device, but instead the broadcast-address of the subnet.

Continuing on my example, I used the following command to successfully wake up my Synology:

$ wakeonlan -i 10.0.1.255 -p 7 01:02:03:04:05:06

(Naturally, substitute the actual values of your device and network for your situation.)

You can get more information from the wakeonlan man page, man wakeonlan, or a quick glossary of commands from wakeonlan -h.

Answer 2

The wakeonlan command for command-line can be added to OS X using the homebrew package manager.

Answer 3

Python comes with OS X per default. So you could use this small Python 2 script to send the wake on lan package. Save it as wakeonlan.py or something you like:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import socket
import sys

if len(sys.argv) < 3:
    print "Usage: wakeonlan.py <ADR> <MAC>     (example: 192.168.1.255 00:11:22:33:44:55)"
    sys.exit(1)

mac = sys.argv[2]
data = ''.join(['FF' * 6, mac.replace(':', '') * 16])
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
sock.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
sock.sendto(data.decode("hex"), (sys.argv[1], 9))

Use it like this:

python wake.py 192.168.1.255 00:11:22:33:44:55

Modify the IP address and MAC address accordingly. The IP address should be the broadcast address of the network.

For easy access you could make this script executable and add it to some directory in your path.

Answer 4

wolcmd is available for Mac: http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-for-apple-mac.aspx

GUI version for $1.99, terminal version is free. Usage is just the same as its Windows counterpart.

Answer 5

The RubyGems package which is stock on Mac, can also be used to install a wake on lan app. Just use the gem install wol command in terminal. It will install the activity in /usr/bin/local/wol.

This avoids having to install brew or package managers. It accepts the same arguments as the wakeonlan examples above.

As an aside, the wol tool can wake a properly configured Synology NAS.

Answer 6

Here is a working python3 version of @J.P. Petersen's solution, you need to replace the hex-decode component, e.g. with the solution mentioned here: Decode Hex String in Python 3

#!/usr/bin/env python

import socket
import sys
import codecs

if len(sys.argv) < 3:
    print("Usage: wakeonlan.py <ADR> <MAC>     (example: 192.168.1.255 00:11:22:33:44:55)")
    sys.exit(1)

mac = sys.argv[2]
data = ''.join(['FF' * 6, mac.replace(':', '') * 16])
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
decode_hex = codecs.getdecoder("hex_codec")
sock.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
sock.sendto(decode_hex(data)[0], (sys.argv[1], 9))

Answer 7

It's probably possible to be installed through the MacPorts package manager as well, but I don't have it installed, can't test it.

Answer 8

Apologies: can't upvote "@J. P. Petersen" or comment yet (don't have enough points), so an answer (late) will have to do.

@lacy is correct on Python3 now, but the script did need some mod, so here's what worked for me (since .decode no longer python3, and we need the MAC address to be bytes-like; also note simplified code and MAC address first argument, no colons); same use broadcast address (not IP address):

$ pico wakeonlan3.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import socket
import sys
mac = bytes(sys.argv[1], 'utf-8')
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
sock.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
sock.sendto(mac, (sys.argv[2], 9))

$ chmod 775 wakeonlan3.py

$ python3 wakeonlan3.py 001451e6f3d1 192.168.0.255

Answer 9

Just wanted to plop this out from the FreeBSD source code, for those not afraid and compiling a small c program.

FreeBSD wake command source