Wake On Lan (WOL) -- Help! [Solved]

[towwire]

I only use SysVinit, it still works on my computer. But let it be known that I am still on MX 21.3.

[operadude]

I only use SysVinit, it still works on my computer. But let it be known that I am still on MX 21.3.

Another blast from the past

I will test on my (SysVinit) system, and let you know if it works...

Finished setting-up cronjob in Job Scheduler, and rebooting now...

[operadude]

@Senpai @towwire

Failed test using:



pre-test data:

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opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ date
Mon Dec 16 09:55:34 AM IST 2024
opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake-on
	Supports Wake-on: pumbg
	Wake-on: d

post-test (reboot) data:

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opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ date
Mon Dec 16 10:12:48 AM IST 2024
opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake-on
	Supports Wake-on: pumbg
	Wake-on: d

Will try now using "sbin", instead...

[operadude]

Failure (using Job Scheduler):

$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake-on
[sudo] password for opera-dude:
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: d

However, manually, when I do this in CLI, I get:

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$ date
Mon Dec 16 10:30:08 AM IST 2024

$ sudo /sbin/ethtool -s eth0 wol g

$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake-on
	Supports Wake-on: pumbg
	Wake-on: g

Not sure why my setup in the Job Scheduler is not working


And, BTW, "ethtool" is no longer in "/usr/bin", but in "/sbin/", as @Senpai noted:

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$ /usr/bin/ethtool -s eth0 wol g
bash: /usr/bin/ethtool: No such file or directory

So, just not sure how to correctly set-up Job Scheduler. Did as suggested, but not working:



I am starting Job Scheduler as root...

OK, see my error in the CLI:

I used "/usr/bin", when I should have used "/usr/sbin", as @towwire suggested.

Trying again...
Maybe that's the problem ?

[operadude]

@Senpai and @towwire

So, this DOES work:



The problem was that even using "@reboot", it wasn't actually scheduling it until Midnight!



Also, here is what I get when looking for where crontab ("cron") lives:

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$ which cron
/sbin/cron
opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ su
Password: 
root@GA-H270-HD3:/home/opera-dude# which cron
/sbin/cron

I did a manual check, and it also lives in:

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/usr/sbin/

So, looks like we have a winner, either way!

[DukeComposed]

The problem was that even using "@reboot", it wasn't actually scheduling it until Midnight!

That's odd. "@reboot" in a crontab is intended to be run when the system starts. As in "After I reboot the machine, cron should run this line as soon as it comes back up again". Maybe it should have been called "@startup", but nonetheless it doesn't have a scheduled time and date when it runs. This is all just assuming standard Vixie cron, of course. I don't know what other cron replacements do.

[operadude]

The problem was that even using "@reboot", it wasn't actually scheduling it until Midnight!

That's odd. "@reboot" in a crontab is intended to be run when the system starts. As in "After I reboot the machine, cron should run this line as soon as it comes back up again". Maybe it should have been called "@startup", but nonetheless it doesn't have a scheduled time and date when it runs. This is all just assuming standard Vixie cron, of course. I don't know what other cron replacements do.

Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, something weird is going on:

I just rebooted, since I see that I deleted the default instructions for crontab, so I copied them from my KDE install and put them back on the Xfce (where I was modifying crontab via Job Scheduler).

On Xfce, where my cronjob lives:

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opera-dude@GA-H270-HD3:~
$ sudo crontab -l
[sudo] password for opera-dude:            

# # Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
# # 
# # Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# # indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# # and what command to run for the task
# # 
# # To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# # minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# # and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').
# # 
# # Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# # daemon's notion of time and timezones.
# # 
# # Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# # email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
# # 
# # For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# # at 5 a.m every week with:
# # 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
# # 
# # For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
# # 
# # m h  dom mon dow   command
 
@reboot /usr/sbin/ethtool -s eth0 wol g

And, after re-boot (a few minutes ago):

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$ sudo ethtool eth0 | grep Wake-on
	Supports Wake-on: pumbg
	Wake-on: d

"Wake-on: " should be followed by a "g"; NOT a "d".

So, not sure

At this point, I'll just stick with "sudo etherwake <MAC Address>", which just works OOTB

[DukeComposed]

Yeah, something weird is going on:

"Wake-on: " should be followed by a "g"; NOT a "d".

So, not sure :confused:

At this point, I'll just stick with "sudo etherwake <MAC Address>", which just works OOTB :happy:

I'd check the logs to see if the command is running at startup as expected. One of the problems with trying to schedule something to always happen at startup is making sure the thing you want to do doesn't get run before the device/file/mountpoint you want to edit is up and initialized.

I'd honestly check if I couldn't put my network interface configs in /etc/network/interfaces or /etc/network/if-pre-up.d or if-up.d instead.

[operadude]

@DukeComposed

Thanks!

Will check it out.

[towwire]

The problem was that even using "@reboot", it wasn't actually scheduling it until Midnight!

That's odd. "@reboot" in a crontab is intended to be run when the system starts. As in "After I reboot the machine, cron should run this line as soon as it comes back up again". Maybe it should have been called "@startup", but nonetheless it doesn't have a scheduled time and date when it runs. This is all just assuming standard Vixie cron, of course. I don't know what other cron replacements do.

For your info the times listed for the @reboot mean nothing as reboot is not a timed event.

Also remember this is on the machine to wake-up or start-up.

For example, if we wanted to have the system date written in a file called date.txt when Linux restarts, we would add the following string:

@reboot date >> ~/date.txt

Some url's that may help you understand.

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https://phoenixnap.com/kb/crontab-reboot

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-execute-cron-job-after-system-reboot/

The computer that is going to give the "wake-up" only needs this command "sudo etherwake <mac address here>".
Hope this help's.