Wol

Wake-on-LAN machine manager: keep a list of the machines of your local network, organised in groups, see which ones are online, and wake them up with a magic packet.

Wol comes in two parts, sharing one configuration file:

• wol, a command-line tool for Windows 10 / 11, Linux and macOS (x86_64 and ARM64). Light enough to run as a permanent monitor on a server or a Raspberry Pi.
• wol-gui, a native desktop app for Windows 10 (1809 or later) and Windows 11, built on top of wol.

Both are portable: no installer, nothing to install besides them, no registry entries.

Contents

• Before you start
• Installation
• Desktop app (Windows)
• Command line
• Configuration file
• Troubleshooting

Before you start

Wake-on-LAN must be enabled on each machine to wake:

• in its firmware (BIOS / UEFI), often under "Power management" ("Wake on LAN", "Power on by PCI-E", etc.);
• in the settings of its network adapter (on Windows: Device Manager, adapter properties, "Power Management" and "Advanced" tabs, "Wake on Magic Packet").

Wol works on the local network: the computer running it must be on the same network as the machines it monitors and wakes up.

Installation

Download the archive for your system from the Releases page:

Archive	Content
wol-gui-vX.Y.Z-windows-x64.zip	Desktop app and command line, Windows x64
wol-vX.Y.Z-windows-x64.zip, wol-vX.Y.Z-windows-arm64.zip	Command line, Windows
wol-vX.Y.Z-linux-x64.tar.gz, wol-vX.Y.Z-linux-arm64.tar.gz	Command line, Linux (static, any distribution, Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit system)
wol-vX.Y.Z-macos-arm64.tar.gz, wol-vX.Y.Z-macos-x64.tar.gz	Command line, macOS (Apple silicon, Intel)

Extract it wherever you want, for example C:\Tools\Wol or ~/.local/bin.

• Windows: the desktop app is wol-gui.exe. Keep the runtime folder next to it: it holds the rest of the app. The executables are not signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may ask for a confirmation on the first start ("More info", then "Run anyway").
• macOS: the executable is not signed yet; allow it once with xattr -d com.apple.quarantine wol.
• To run wol from anywhere, add its folder to the PATH.

To update Wol, replace the files with those of the new version. To remove it, delete them, then the configuration folder if you do not want to keep your machines (see Configuration file).

Desktop app (Windows)

Start wol-gui.exe. The window lists your machines by group, with their state (online, offline, waking up…), their current IP address and the network interface that answered. States are checked continuously, every 10 seconds by default.

Machines

• Add a machine: "Add" button. Give it a name and at least one MAC address; "Add from network" lists the devices found on the local network, to pick one without typing its address. A machine can have several network interfaces (Ethernet and Wi-Fi, for example), each with a label: Wol wakes them all and the machine is online as soon as one of them answers.
• Wake a machine: "Wake" button on its row. Wol then waits until it is online, and tells you when it does not answer in time ("Retry").
• Other actions: the "…" menu of a row: check now, edit, duplicate, move to a group, copy its MAC addresses, remove.
• Search: the search box filters the machines by name, MAC address, IP address or label.

Groups

• Create a group with "New group" in the side bar; select a group to show only its machines.
• The menu of a group wakes all its machines, renames it, moves it up or down, or removes it (its machines can then be kept without a group). Groups can also be reordered by dragging them in the side bar.

Notification area

Closing the window keeps Wol running in the notification area (it can be turned off in the settings). Its icon shows the overall state; its menu opens the window, wakes all machines or a group, refreshes the states, or quits Wol. Notifications tell you when a machine comes online, does not wake up in time, or goes offline.

Settings

The settings page (gear at the bottom of the side bar) sets:

• the theme (system, light, dark) and the language (system, English, French);
• starting with Windows (a shortcut in your Startup folder), starting in the notification area, closing to the notification area;
• the time between two checks and how long a wake-up waits for a machine;
• which notifications to show.

Its "About" section shows the versions, and opens the folder of the configuration file.

Command line

wol [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Command	What it does
wol list	List groups and machines, with their network interfaces
wol status [MACHINES]...	Check whether machines are online (all by default)
wol wake <MACHINES>...	Wake machines up
wol watch [MACHINES]...	Monitor machines and print every state change
wol scan	List the devices found on the local network
wol add <NAME> --mac <MAC>	Add a machine
wol edit <NAME> ...	Change a machine
wol remove <NAME>	Remove a machine
wol group add / rename / move / remove	Manage groups
wol version	Print the version

wol <command> -h gives a summary of a command, wol <command> --help all its details. Machine and group names are case-insensitive; quote those with spaces ("Office PC").

Set up your machines

# Find the MAC address of a machine: it must be on.
wol scan
# 192.168.1.20     A4:BB:6D:12:34:56
# 192.168.1.30     00:11:32:BC:72:E9

# Groups are optional; they come in the order of creation.
wol group add Office
wol group add Servers

wol add "Office PC" --group Office --mac A4:BB:6D:12:34:56=Ethernet --mac A4:BB:6D:12:34:57=Wi-Fi
wol add NAS --group Servers --mac 00:11:32:BC:72:E9

--mac accepts AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF, AA-BB-CC-DD-EE-FF, AABB.CCDD.EEFF and AABBCCDDEEFF, optionally followed by =Label. When the computer running Wol has several networks, give the broadcast address of the right one with --broadcast 192.168.1.255; --port changes the UDP port of the magic packet (9 by default).

Change a machine with wol edit; only the given options change:

wol edit NAS --name "NAS Origen"
wol edit "Office PC" --remove-mac A4:BB:6D:12:34:57
wol edit NAS --no-group

Check and wake

wol status
# Office
#   Office PC  online   192.168.1.20 (Ethernet)
# Servers
#   NAS        offline

wol wake NAS                    # send the magic packets
wol wake --group Servers        # every machine of a group
wol wake NAS --wait             # then wait until it is online (120 s at most)
wol wake NAS --wait=300         # wait up to 300 s

wol watch prints the state of every machine, then one line per change until you stop it (Ctrl+C); --interval sets the time between two checks (10 s by default). It takes changes of the configuration file into account while it runs.

Scripts

With --json, every command prints JSON for scripts and integrations, and watch prints one JSON line per event. The exit code tells what happened:

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	Generic failure (file access)
2	Invalid usage (bad arguments or values, name already used)
3	Invalid configuration file
4	Machine or group not found
5	Network error (no local network to scan)
6	Machines not online in time (wake --wait)

The JSON format is described in docs/cli-contract.md.

Configuration file

Machines and groups are kept in one text file, wol.toml, shared by the command line and the desktop app. Wol uses the first of:

1. the file given with --config <path> (command line only);
2. wol.toml next to the wol executable (portable mode);
3. your configuration folder:
   • Windows: %APPDATA%\wol\wol.toml
   • Linux: ~/.config/wol/wol.toml
   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/wol/wol.toml

wol without a command shows which file it uses. The file is created on the first change.

Portable mode: put an empty wol.toml next to the executables, and everything stays in that folder, for example on a USB drive. The desktop app then keeps its own settings there too, in wol-gui.json (otherwise in %APPDATA%\wol\).

The file can also be edited by hand; your comments and layout are kept by Wol:

[[group]]
name = "Office"

[[group]]
name = "Servers"

[[machine]]
name = "Office PC"
group = "Office"
interfaces = [
    { mac = "A4:BB:6D:12:34:56", label = "Ethernet" },
    { mac = "A4:BB:6D:12:34:57", label = "Wi-Fi" },
]

[[machine]]
name = "NAS"
group = "Servers"
interfaces = [{ mac = "00:11:32:BC:72:E9" }]
broadcast = "192.168.1.255"   # optional, default 255.255.255.255
port = 9                      # optional, default 9

Troubleshooting

• A machine does not wake up. Check that Wake-on-LAN is enabled in its firmware and network adapter (see Before you start); some machines only wake from sleep, or need to have been shut down properly. Wi-Fi interfaces rarely support Wake-on-LAN: prefer Ethernet. When the computer running Wol has several networks, set --broadcast.
• A machine shows offline but is on. Wol finds machines by their MAC addresses on the local network: check the address with wol scan. A machine behind a router, or reached through a VPN, cannot be seen.
• Two machines share a MAC address (cloned virtual machines): Wol accepts it and warns you, but cannot tell them apart when that address answers.
• The desktop app says wol.exe is missing. Keep wol.exe next to wol-gui.exe, with the runtime folder.

Contributing

To build Wol from its sources, see docs/DEVELOPER.md.

License

MIT © Sébastien Faut