Wake on lan support?

[wiyosaya]

I am running SuSE 12.1 on a server that is the internet gateway for my home network. I would like to be able to wake that machine up using wake-on-lan, however, according to a post in the SuSE forums (which I cannot supply here because I am too much of a noob ), wake on lan support was removed from the Linux kernel at some point.

Does anyone know what the status of wake on lan is for the more recent, stable kernels?

Thanks.

 

[DevynCJohnson]

Does your BIOS support wake-on-LAN? If the BIOS does not support it, then there is no need to be worried about wake-on-Lan at the OS level.

Actually, if the BIOS does support wake-on-LAN, then kernel does not matter because the motherboard would just boot up the system like you normally would.

 

[wiyosaya]

Many thanks for your reply. To me, it makes sense that wake on LAN is like pushing the power button - now that you mention it. I checked the bios on my current mb, but it does not support it.

I have been considering a rebuild of my system, so a mb change gives me a reason to go ahead with it.

Thanks once again!

 

[DevynCJohnson]

@wiyosaya , if my post answered your question to your satisfaction, do not forget to click "Best Answer" under my post.

 

[ryanvade]

I would like to mention that if the BIOS does not support wake-on-lan it is because either it came before WOL or because the NIC does not. If you get a network card that supports WOL and put it into a computer that does not currently support it, chances are you will then get WOL support.

 

[wiyosaya]

It is a bit hard choosing the best answer here, but it sounds like essentially a hardware function. I will have to think about buying a separate NIC that does support wake on lan. I may just upgrade my system to newer hardware anyway as I have been considering a fresh install due to some functions that I have not been able to get working since upgrading SuSE several years ago.

 

[ryanvade]

You can check with the motherboard manufacturer if the BIOS/UEFI would support WOL through a PCI/PCI-e ethernet port. The BIOS updates page for your motherboard would more then likely say also.

 

[wiyosaya]

The motherboard does support wake on PCI-e events, so I assume that if I get a PCI-e WOL NIC, then the MB would wake up if WOL on the NIC were triggered. I am still leaning more towards the rebuild and fresh install approach however.

Another question on this, does Linux have the capability to shut down a PCI-e NIC or motherboard NIC, i.e., turn it off, so that it would not respond to a WOL request? According to the post in the SuSE forums (if correct) this is what was happening.

Thanks.

 

[ryanvade]

The motherboard does support wake on PCI-e events, so I assume that if I get a PCI-e WOL NIC, then the MB would wake up if WOL on the NIC were triggered. I am still leaning more towards the rebuild and fresh install approach however.

Another question on this, does Linux have the capability to shut down a PCI-e NIC or motherboard NIC, i.e., turn it off, so that it would not respond to a WOL request? According to the post in the SuSE forums (if correct) this is what was happening.

Thanks.

Yes, the OS can enable/disable WOL.