---
name: "etherwake"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "etherwake"
version: "1.09-5"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/etherwake"
---

# etherwake(8)

A tool to send a Wake-On-LAN "Magic Packet"

## NAME

etherwake - A tool to send a Wake-On-LAN "Magic Packet"

## SYNOPSIS

**etherwake** \[*options*\] *Host-ID*

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents the usage of the **ether-wake** command.

**etherwake** is a program that generates and transmits a Wake-On-LAN (WOL) "Magic Packet", used for restarting machines that have been soft-powered-down (ACPI D3-warm state). It generates the standard AMD Magic Packet format, optionally with a password included.  The single required parameter is a station (MAC) address or a host ID that can be translated to a MAC address by an [**ethers**(5)](/ethers/5.md) database specified in [**nsswitch.conf**(5)](/nsswitch.conf/5.md)

## OPTIONS

**etherwake** needs a single dash ('-') in front of options. A summary of options is included below.

- **-b**

  Send the wake-up packet to the broadcast address.

- **-D**

  Increase the Debug Level.

- **-i ifname**

  Use interface ifname instead of the default (first available interface or "eth0").

- **-p passwd**

  Append a four or six byte password to the packet. Only a few adapters need or support this. A six byte password may be specified in Ethernet hex format (00:22:44:66:88:aa) or four byte dotted decimal (192.168.1.1) format. A four byte password must use the dotted decimal format.

- **-V**

  Show the program version information.

## EXIT STATUS

This program returns 0 on success. A permission failures (e.g. run as a non-root user) results in an exit status of 2.  Unrecognized or invalid parameters result in an exit status of 3.  Failure to retrieve network interface information or send a packet will result in an exit status of 1.

## SEE ALSO

[**arp**(8)](/arp/8.md).\

## SECURITY

On some non-Linux systems dropping root capability allows the process to be dumped, traced or debugged. If someone traces this program, they get control of a raw socket. Linux handles this safely, but beware when porting this program.

## AUTHOR

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