.Net'ers

Has your computer ever gone into sleep mode and you can’t remote desktop to it?  There’s a way to wake it up by sending what’s called a “magic packet”.  Before the “how”, here are some things to consider:

1. You will need to know some info about the computer you want to wake up that you can only get from that computer (see below), so if you can’t remote to the computer in question now or physically get to it, this won’t help you until you can get the info. I’d recommend you get the info and keep it with you so you have it when you need it.
2. Depending on how your network is set up, your IP address may change.  They usually don’t change very often, but they can.
3. If you are trying to reach a computer on your company’s network, you will need to be VPN’ed in.
4. Your computer’s BIOS may require that you set enable a “Wake on LAN” setting.  The actual setting name may vary from machine to machine.
5. There is one parameter that is outlined on the Depicus page listed below: the port number.  You can try without a port number – it will default to 7.  If port 7 doesn’t work, ask you network administrator.

Now, on to the “how”.  Here’s the info you will need to get from the computer you want to wake remotely:

1. Your computer’s mac address (open a command prompt, type “ipconfig /all”, locate your network card and the “physical address” is your mac address)
2. Your computers IP address (use the ipconfig /all to find it as well).
3. Your subnet mask (use the ipconfig /all to find it)

Download the utility “wake-on-lan” command line utility – the link is at the bottom of the page.  http://www.depicus.com/wake-on-lan/wake-on-lan-cmd.aspx

After you download, save and extract the file, open a command prompt and browse to the location you extracted the file to.  Enter the following:

wolcmd [mac address] [ip address] [subnet mask]

replacing the values in brackets with the values for the computer you want to wake up.  That should wake up your computer remotely by sending a “magic packet”.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at %I:%M %p and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.