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Is it possible for me to send a packet from another computer to my computer? I am interested in waking up my computer at work from the one I am using at home. That is, I would like to power it on at 7:00 a.m. by sending it a wake-on packet from the home computer. I have no idea how to carry out this seemingly trivial task. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can accomplish this?

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If your computer is off, who will recieve that packet? – Nikhil Agrawal Jun 5 '12 at 2:26
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@NikhilAgrawal: I believe the asker is thinking of this – Amadan Jun 5 '12 at 2:28
I remember that some network cards stay on when the computer is off. Maybe WOL would work in such a case? (Amadan is ahead of me...) – GMMan Jun 5 '12 at 2:28
My first thoughts would be to check the victim's BIOS to see if it supports waking on network request and to verify that there are no firewalls or other security devices that would stand in your way. – user92546 Jun 5 '12 at 2:30
Another approach would be to use a mains power switch that can be controlled via IP remotely. Plug your computer into that. – Greg Hewgill Jun 5 '12 at 2:33

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jun 5 '12 at 2:48

4 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

There are a few existing answers about doing this in C#: Wake on LAN using C# and http://blog.cordiner.net/2010/03/06/wake-on-lan-c/ amongst them. The second of those links will talk you through writing a wake-on-lan magic packet in C#.

However, there is a problem with the setup as you have described it, as you need to be on the local network to send the wake-on packet successfully. If you have access to another machine on your work network (for example, if you share the office LAN with a web server) you could use that machine as an intermediary.

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up vote 2 down vote

This isn't exactly a SO question, more like a superuser one. Here is the answer regardless:

The computer you send the packet from has to be on the same subnet. If you have other computers on your network you can do it with them, or if your router has firmware that supports this.

Also make sure that your motherboard supports this and the option is enabled in BIOS. It would be disabled by default to save power.

Edit: If you are running Linux, check out the WOL command: http://linux.die.net/man/1/wol

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up vote 1 down vote

If you need it on by 7 am every morning - why not just set the wake time in the BIOS? Most new machines now have this feature.

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up vote 0 down vote

This does not help you from a remote location, but many modern PC BIOSs allow you to set a wake at time. I use it to wake lab and kiosk PCs at a set time every morning.

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