I'd like to be able to wake-on-LAN all the computers in my home lab. Can I simply send a WOL packet to 192.168.1.255/24 and wake computers on my LAN? Thanks.
1 Answer
Yes and no.
The WoL packets as a whole are usually broadcast, in order to reach NICs which have no IP address. However, the packet data – the "magic packet" itself – needs to contain the machine's individual MAC address. So if you use the wake-on-magic-packet feature it's always directed.
The same applies to most kinds of wake-on-pattern features: while many cards allow programming a set of custom wake patterns (e.g. ARP queries, TCP SYNs), many operating systems have a hardcoded list of such patterns and they're all specific to the host as well. (Waking up the whole subnet is rarely a desired feature.)
With Linux you might be able to program the same generic WoL pattern into all hosts; however it would be much easier to just send a bunch of individual WoL packets with a simple shellscript.
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