0
Success. Either the queued magic packets were all sent, or the requested help or version information was displayed.
Perl script to wake up computers
wakeonlan [{-h | --help}]
[{-v | --version}]
[{-q | --quiet}]
[{-n | --dry-run}]
[{-i | --ip
IP_address}]
[{-p | --port
port}]
[{-f | --file
file_name}]
[{-d | --delay
seconds}]
[[hardware_address] ...]
This script sends 'magic packets' to wake-on-lan enabled ethernet adapters and motherboards, in order to switch on the called PC. Be sure to connect the NIC with the motherboard if necessary, and to enable the WOL function in the BIOS.
The 'magic packet' consists of 6 times 0xFF followed by 16 times the hardware address of the NIC. This sequence can be encapsulated in any kind of packet. This script uses UDP packets.
-h, --help
Displays the full POD documentation, which includes usage examples.
-v, --version
Displays the script version.
-i, --ip=IP_address
Destination IP address. Unless you have static ARP tables you should use some kind of broadcast address (the broadcast address of the network where the computer resides or the limited broadcast address). Default: 255.255.255.255 (the limited broadcast address).
-p, --port=port
Destination port. Default: 9 (the discard port).
-f, --file=file_name
File with hardware addresses of wakeable computers. For an example check the file lab001.wol in the examples subdirectory.
-q, --quiet
Quiet mode.
-n, --dry-run
Print the commands that would be executed, but do not execute them.
-d, --delay=seconds
Delay (in seconds) between sending magic packets. Can be a fractional second (e.g., 0.5).
0
Success. Either the queued magic packets were all sent, or the requested help or version information was displayed.
1
Invalid command line options.
2
Invalid default destination port (see -p, --port).
3
Invalid default destination IP address (see -i, --ip).
4
The file given to -f, --file is missing or is not a plain file or a FIFO (named pipe).
Invalid records -- hardware addresses, IP addresses or ports that fail validation -- are reported on the standard error and skipped, and on their own do not change the exit status: a run in which every record is rejected still exits with 0.
Any other non-zero exit status denotes an unexpected runtime failure, such as a file that cannot be opened or a socket that cannot be created. Those failures come with a message on the standard error and the status is the underlying system error number.
Using the limited broadcast address (255.255.255.255):
$ wakeonlan 01:02:03:04:05:06$ wakeonlan 01:02:03:04:05:06 01:02:03:04:05:07
Using a subnet broadcast address:
$ wakeonlan -i 192.168.1.255 01:02:03:04:05:06
Using another destination port:
$ wakeonlan -i 192.168.1.255 -p 1234 01:02:03:04:05:06
Using a file as source of hardware and IP addresses:
$ wakeonlan -f examples/lab001.wol$ wakeonlan -f examples/lab001.wol 01:02:03:04:05:06
12 releases since Debian 3.1 (Sarge); the text changed 7 times.
--delay since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--dry-run since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--file since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--help since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--ip since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--port since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--quiet since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--version since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
-d since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
-n since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
-q since Arch Linux 2026-11-01.