Talk:Wake-on-LAN

WoL vs. LOM, "off" vs. "asleep"
Are "Power On By LAN" and "Power Up By LAN" really equivalent to WoL? This seems like a major oversight to me, confusing the two states. I suggest clear distinction, since e.g. Macs in sleep mode can be easily awaken, but once they're shut down there's no way to turn them on remotely.

In addition, Lights Out Management should be mentioned in this article, to contrast LOM and WoL. Binba (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Links to free services and software
I have added, again, links to sites offering free services and software for Wake on LAN. I have no interest in pushing any particular solution, but it is very useful to have these things available. If the actual links are removed (which I do not recommend), at least it would be useful to provide a procedure to find the various free services and software available. The links are a useful service to the user, rather than a tool to sell commercial product. I tend to use one particular (free) supplier which I find convenient, but have no wish to promote any particular one. Anyone who needs to use WoL needs a service and/or software to do the waking; these are useful tools. Personally I have links on my desktop which, when clicked, awake a particular machine on my network, using wolcmd.exe (downloaded free) from the Windows command-line. A program from any other source would do as well. Pol098 (talk) 09:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that references to representative free websites may be appropriate. However, in recent weeks there has been a clean edit war going on between two parties who have repeatedly replaced references with alternate ones. This has gone on long enough. I have removed all such websites. They can be easily found by using any search engine. If you have something useful to add to Wikipedia then please add it. Please don't delete anothers additions just to insert your own.Absoluterecall (talk) 21:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I actually looked at this article specifically because I was looking for a utility to send a wake up packet. other wikipedia articles usually provide at least a selection of some commonly used software, but in this article I find nothing. this is very frustrating. imho this article is quite useless this way. --helohe (talk)  21:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

WoWLAN "standard", WMM, and keeping it all straight
I just edited the article to remove a rather authoritative statement that I saw was actually causing some level of confusion with people trying to implement WoWLAN in the real world. It stated that WoWLAN does not use the normal WoL packets, but instead sends them over WMM. AFAICT this was based off an erroneous offhand conjecture made (and then self-corrected) by the author of the cited article on the Apple Bonjour. Another contributing factor to this confusion is that WMM does include facilities for power-saving sleep but these are on the microsecond scale (the two features may interact, in that a WoL magic packet going over a WiFi link might queue in the WMM queue on the AP, but it is not clear that this actually happens given no publicly available copy of WiFi WoL standards.)

Now, as to WoWLAN, I kept the references to it, but aside from the Intel paper, which they have since disappeared from their site (wayback link now added) I don't google much of a solid indication that this standard actually exists outside of Intel. It is unclear if Apple even used the same "standard" in their implementation though it is probable given airports are made by Intel. Perhaps someone can actually find a standard number, or some indication where in the paywall-protected stack of IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance standards WoWLAN is actually formally defined, and what standards body approved it, but we should probably demote it to a vendor-specific feature.

Finally, it is important to disambiguate between WoL, and wake-on-demand technologies. It can probably be done while keeping both in the same article, but that's a bigger edit than I had time for. Also a distinction should be clearly drawn between WoL and WMM/802.11e power saving mechanisms. (140.232.0.68 (talk) 20:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC))

Useful References
I would propose to restore the technical references that this article was based upon and which further expand on the topic. My understanding is that it is okay to link to third-party material as long as it does not overtly promote a product or service. I have had a discussion with User_talk:93.95.153.140 who contends that any material that may have any commercial nature should not be referenced and insists upon removing references to any such material. I would propose a slightly less strict inclusion criteria to include if (1) Relevant and (2) non-promotional. For the limitations section I would propose the following (the first one was the original source for the section):


 * http://www.datasynergy.co.uk/products/wakeman/pdfs/Wake-on-LANExplained.pdf


 * http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb632911.aspx — Preceding unsigned comment added by Settlementplan (talk • contribs) 16:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree. As long as the reference is relevant it should be included.86.29.132.231 (talk) 09:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at those two documents and they certainly help explain why the limitations exist. What's the problem?178.103.170.13 (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I wrote write the original 'limitations' section and based it upon the document that is being discussed. You can see my original contribution here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wake-on-LAN&oldid=381138661. I think I can say with some justification that I contributed very significantly to the article and bashed it into the current structure that it takes. I made numerous changes over several weeks taking material from many sources all of which I referenced. I would not have been able to do this without the references which I painstakingly added to the article. I would not speculate on intentions but it appears to me that someone removed virtually all references for the material. You can see this here: [Special:Contributions/93.95.153.140]. This is a complex technical subject and the reference material helped me write the ORIGINAL sections in question. They are useful and most certainly relevant.Absoluterecall (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Absoluterecall, your main contribution looks like you have copypasted a couple of paragraphs from this ambiguous reference without any actual sources research that actually presented in the current article state. Have you ever read AMD's white paper (magic packet technology) at least? 93.95.153.140 (talk) 02:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes I have read AMD's paper. It is the primary source for this topic but doesn't cover all of the ramifications and limitations as much as it could. This is why some of the follow-up material is useful. If you study my contributions you will see that I wrote or re-wrote much or the current article and was the main contributor who took the article to its current form. To do this I used numerous references which I painstakingly added to the document. You seem to have decided to remove them all which means I and others cannot find the original material the article was based upon. I let this go last year because I didn't want to fight a pointless edit war with you - I'm going to ask for external arbitration now and trust that you will respect the result. BTW: I wrote or significantly re-wrote the limitations, troubleshooting, SDB and Sending sections. I call that a significant contribution.Absoluterecall (talk) 10:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've made some research on your actual activity. Yes, you have many edits on this article but it mainly related with linking to mentioned commercial site (***.co.uk). As you end your edits you did blank your discuss page and have done no contributions to Wikipedia until now, but at the time appears your follower Settlementplan that did the same thing (the same as the couple of humble writers with zero contributions at three paragraphs above). Doesn't it look like trend for advertising actions? 93.95.153.140 (talk) 13:56, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Why the fighting guys. I've used this article as a reference loads of time and have certainly found the linked documents really useful. Thank you Special:Contributions/Absoluterecall for your efforts you certainly made a big difference to this article.149.254.60.170 (talk) 15:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Is is just a coincidence that all recent "zero contributors" IP adresses from the UK or is it one and the same affiliated man behind DHCP? 93.95.153.140 (talk) 16:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

What a shame that one person seems to have stopped the links to these useful references. At least they are still in the article history. As I said in January "Agree. As long as the reference is relevant it should be included." No DHCP sorry. 86.29.132.231 (talk) 16:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

In the article: "[...]it may be sent as any network- and transport-layer protocol, although it is typically sent as a UDP datagram to port 0[...]" it's funny because the reference https://community.landesk.com/support/docs/DOC-1866 clearly specifies that it does not work with TCP... is it specific to LANDesk product? Should be clarified, thanks. Irvick (talk) 14:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Theoretically, a WoL packet could be sent embedded inside a TCP segment, but this would require bypassing the OS stack and avoiding stateful routers/firewalls as the initial SYN would never be ACK'ed and the socket could never be established. However, this is a problem of TCP and not of WoL. LANDesk can't do anything different. --Zac67 (talk) 18:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Name
Is "Wake-on-LAN" always capitalized mid-sentence, or can it be "wake-on-LAN"?

How about hyphenation? The article switches between hyphens and no hyphens.

XP1 (talk) 05:30, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Wake-on-LAN. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071126071350/http://www.lesswatts.org:80/tips/ethernet.php to http://www.lesswatts.org/tips/ethernet.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:30, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

WOL from Power Off state with Windows 10 or others mentioned is working
As of Wikipedia is not the platform, where you upload first hand informations I'll write it here Wake-on-LAN does work with the mentioned Operating systems (Windows Server 2012 or above, Windows 8.1 or above) But there are several things has to be set to be able to use it.

I'll just write some points. 1. Fast boot OFF 2. Device "Manager / Network adapters / [Adapter] / Wake on Magic Packet" has to be Enabled +. In certain cases you have to change things in the BIOS, as it can be dependant from here aswell.

I use it with Win10 and it works for me. But I would like to ask everyone to test their computer before first time usage and going far from home thinking it would work and then facepalm, that they have not done something, and it's not working then. I faced some issues, that I am willing to test after writing the post. That It can turn of until a bit of time, and then it is not working until the computer is booted and then shut down again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 20Attila03 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

WOL vs WoL
(Reverted good faith edits by Djk44883 (talk): Arguably, WoL is more common)

I don't believe there is any specific common use. I clicked on the cited references, for consistency with those, I changed the article.

Many major software and computer vendors use WOL. As examples, Microsoft & Dell. Not to say they set standards, other may use different.

You can find WOL in man page for the ether-wake command.

Networking utility WireShark uses WOL.

So yes, it is arguable! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djk44883 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)


 * It's probably a matter of personal preference nowadays. I think I remember that initially "WoL" was much more common, but perhaps that isn't the case any more. Today, use even by a single organization isn't consistent. What actually made me revert your WP:BOLD edit was the fact the the article predominantly used camel-case "WoL" and we shouldn't change that unless there's consensus here that "WOL" is more common. My vote is on WoL. ;-) ---Zac67 (talk)


 * Seriously? WOL couldn't be considered an equivalent term?  It IS in use as WOL, and WoL -- WOL is an in use equivalent term... at the least!--djk44883 (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that and I don't dispute that. I even moved "WOL" to the very beginning of the article (from your last edit) to indicate that both variants are used, roughly equally. I was just referring to what the article itself should use (and be consistent about it). --Zac67 (talk) 21:27, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I greatly apologize! I just click where my edit had been reverted.  I guess I just saw what I was looking at... it didn't say the page was edited... I appericate the final edit and sorry for any misunderstands.--djk44883 (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries – all good! --Zac67 (talk) 22:57, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I have been in the industry for well over a decade, use this feature regularly, and here on Wikipedia is the first place I have ever seen it written "WoL". As it is an acronym, I vote for WOL, as commonly seen used in operating systems and hardware users manuals. Unfortunately, the terms are too similar to gather usage statistics/trends from Google on this topic to make a stronger argument. I would argue that the way Dell does it here is best: After consistently using "WOL" throughout the page, they wrote "Wake-on-LAN (sometimes abbreviated WoL)..." (On this page, you will also see where Windows refers to the feature as "WOL".) Furthermore, think of popular (and some vulgar) phrases and organization titles that are frequently reduced to acronyms. Do we habitually capitalize or drop letters in these acronyms based on whether the words they refer to are prepositions or not? No, we do not; and we should not do so here either. Techie007 (talk) 23:56, 19 February 2022 (UTC)