Wake-on-LAN (WoL or WOL) is an Ethernet or Token Ring computer networking standard that allows a computer to be turned on or awakened from sleep mode by a network message. It is based upon AMD's Magic Packet Technology, which was co-developed by AMD and Hewlett-Packard, following its proposal as a standard in 1995. The standard saw quick adoption thereafter through IBM, Intel and others.
Equivalent terms include wake on WAN, remote wake-up, power on by LAN, power up by LAN, resume by LAN, resume on LAN and wake up on LAN. If the computer being awakened is communicating via Wi-Fi, a supplementary standard called Wake on Wireless LAN (WoWLAN) must be employed.[1]
The message is usually sent to the target computer by a program executed on a device connected to the same local area network (LAN). It is also possible to initiate the message from another network by using subnet directed broadcasts or a WoL gateway service.
The WoL and WoWLAN standards are often supplemented by vendors to provide protocol-transparent on-demand services, for example in the Apple Bonjour wake-on-demand (Sleep Proxy) feature.[2]
- ^ von Nagy, Andrew (8 November 2010). "Wake on Wireless LAN". Revolution Wi-Fi Blog. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
- ^ Fleishman, Glenn (28 August 2009). "Wake on Demand lets Snow Leopard sleep with one eye open". Macworld. Archived from the original on 16 September 2009. Retrieved 15 September 2009.
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