Category:	Utilities
Price:	Free
Popularity:	Low
Version String:	2.0.1
Release Date:	2018-12-19
Architecture:	Intel & i386
Minimum OS:	macOS 10.4
Vendor Name:	Hans Luijten - Tweaking4All.com / WeetHet.nl.
Homepage:	www.tweaking4all.com

Description:

Quick and Easy Wake On LAN Utility

Waking up devices that are network connected, can be done with the so called “Wake On LAN” feature provided by certain devices (like for example a NAS, FileServer, or even a PC). A while back I created a simple application for this – miniWOL – keeping in mind that the user may not be too familiar with all the configuration details (see: previous miniWOL versions).

I wanted just a simple menu in the System Tray (Windows: next to the clock, usually the lower-right corner of your screen) or Menubar (MacOS X – top of your screen, Linux often at the bottom of your screen). Well, after a bit of searching I could not find anything suitable or to my liking and I decided to just write something myself.

The old miniWOL has been good so far, and plenty folks seem to have a good use for it privately and professionally. However, Apple had to change a few things (moving to 64 bit, using Cocoa instead of Carbon, and the need to sign and notarize applications – I suspect Microsoft will probably follow soon) so while revamping the Mac version, I revamped the Windows version as well, and added a 64-bit Linux version as well (by request).


What is Wake On LAN ?

Wake On LAN, or WOL, is a Ethernet standard that allows you to “wake up” computers or network devices that are in stand-by, and is originally intended for use in a local network.

WOL is probably most commonly used to wake up a server or NAS, just before access to these machines is needed – for example a media server, which can sleep all day long until you want to watch a movie. There can be several motivations to do this; save on power, save on wear-and-tear of your equipment, etc.

WOL also requires the network card of this device to be semi-awake, and still listen to traffic, just in case a “magic packet” is being send to the device. While the NIC (network interface controller) is listening, a lot of traffic might pass that might not even be intended for this network connection, so just listening to network traffic would keep your network device awake even when you don’t want it to be awake.

Note that theoretically WiFi supports Wake on Lan as well, however … not all computers and operating systems support this, so you milage may vary!

The Magic Packet (UDP) is typically send to port 9, some systems default to port 7, and some systems allow you to define your own port number.

Normally just one single packet should do the trick, but most Wake On Lan applications actually send more than one packet – just to make sure.

To prevent that just anything can wake up such a network device, a very specifically formatted “magic packet” has to be send over the network. Naturally, you can guess that this is not 100% fool proof, but it’s better than nothing, and in your local network (at home or in the office) this might be safe enough.

Additionally a broadcasting address (or mask) is supported, which allows you to send the magic packet to the entire network or parts of the network (default: 255.255.255.255). This technique does seem to be required for some devices to work with WOL. This is unfortunate, since broadcasts aimed at a specific device (unicast) appears more secure than subnet-directed broadcast. See also these 2 Microsoft Technet articles: About Subnet-Directed Broadcast and Choose Between Unicast and Subnet-Directed Broadcast for Wake On LAN.


Enabling Wake On LAN on your Network Device

Before we can wake up a network device with WOL, you will need setup this device to do so. Quite often you’d need to do some settings in the “BIOS” of your computer, and.or do some settings in the operating system as well.
Certain devices, like most NAS devices, make it a little easier by offering a simple “WOL ON/OFF” function.
Since this will be different for most devices, either consult the manual of your device, read an the manual of your device, a generic online guide like this one at How-to-Geek, or consult Google.


Wake-On-LAN local vs over the Internet

miniWOL, and Wake On LAN in general, is intended to be used in a local network, meaning: wake up a network device in the same network you’r in (at home or in the office). To wake up a device at home, over the Internet (ie. you’re in the office or traveling), will require some trickery including, but not limited to, port forwarding. Not every modem/router can even do this. An example can be found here: DD-WRT.

So by default: use miniWOL for devices in your local network.

For waking up devices over the Internet, you will need to do some extra leg work to get everything configured correctly.


miniWOL

The intend of miniWOL is to have a small icon in your SysTray (Windows) or Menubar (Linux and MacOS X), where you can send a Wake On LAN magic packet to a defined server. All this without thinking or seeing all the in-depth details (once you’ve configured it right).