Quick Start | Contribute

A Wake on Lan plugin for Homebridge

Turn your PCs, laptops, servers and more on and off through Siri

Quick Start

To install the plugin, head over to the machine with Homebridge set up and run the following command:

npm install -g homebridge-wol

Add your devices to your config.json:

"accessories": [
  {
    "accessory": "NetworkDevice",
    "name": "My MacBook",
    "host": "192.168.1.51",
    "mac": "aa🇧🇧cc:dd🇪🇪ff"
  }
]

Table of contents

Quickstart
Configuration
Lifecycle
Notes and FAQ
Contributing

Configuration

To make Homebridge aware of the new plugin, you will have to add it to your configuration usually found in /root/.homebridge/config.json or /home/username/.homebridge/config.json. If the file does not exist, you can create it following the config sample. Somewhere inside that file you should see a key named accessories. This is where you can add your computer as shown here:

"accessories": [
   {
     "accessory": "NetworkDevice",
     "name": "My Macbook",
     "mac": "<mac-address>",
     "host": "macbook.local",
     "pingCommand": "ssh macbook.local 'if [[ $(pmset -g powerstate IODisplayWrangler | tail -1 | cut -c29) -lt 4 ]]; then; exit 1; else; echo 1; fi;'",
     "pingInterval": 45,
     "wakeGraceTime": 10,
     "wakeCommand": "ssh macbook.local caffeinate -u -t 300",
     "shutdownGraceTime": 15,
     "shutdownCommand": "ssh macbook.local sudo shutdown -h now"
   },
   {
     "accessory": "NetworkDevice",
     "name": "My Windows Gaming Rig",
     "mac": "<mac-address>",
     "host": "192.168.1.151",
     "shutdownCommand": "net rpc shutdown --ipaddress 192.168.1.151 --user username%password"
   },
   {
     "accessory": "NetworkDevice",
     "name": "Raspberry Pi",
     "mac": "<mac-address>",
     "host": "192.168.1.251",
     "pingInterval": 45,
     "wakeGraceTime": 90,
     "shutdownGraceTime": 15,
     "shutdownCommand": "sshpass -p 'raspberry' ssh -oStrictHostKeyChecking=no pi@192.168.1.251 sudo shutdown -h now"
   },
   {
     "accessory": "NetworkDevice",
     "name": "My NAS",
     "host": "192.168.1.148",
     "log": false,
     "broadcastAddress": "172.16.1.255"
   }
]

For more configuration examples, please see the wiki which contains a growing collection of user-contributed guides on how to setup the plugin, Windows 10, Samba, Linux etc.: https://github.com/AlexGustafsson/homebridge-wol/wiki.

Required configuration

Optional configuration

Accessory information

Pinging

Pinging using a command

Note: these settings render those mentioned in the above section useless.

Turning on

Turning off

Logging

Miscellaneous

Lifecycle

Whenever Homebridge starts, the plugin will check the state of all configured devices. This is done by pinging or executing the pingCommand once, depending on the configuration. If the pinging or pingCommand executes successfully, the device is considered online and vice versa.

The pinging by actual pings or use of the pingCommand will continue in the background, monitoring the state of the device. If pingsToChange (defaults to 5) pings have the same result and that result is not the current state, the state of the device will be considered changed. If pingCommand is configured, it is used instead of actual pings and will result in an immediate state change.

This pinging will result in state changes between online and offline.

Whenever you flick a switch to its on position via HomeKit, the device is marked as "turning on". Then a WoL packet is sent to the device if a MAC address is configured and if a startCommand is configured, it is also executed immediately. After the device has been started, it is marked as online. Then the plugin will wait for the time configured by wakeGraceTime (defaults to 45s). If a wakeCommand is configured, it will be called after the wait is over. Once all commands are completed, the device will be monitored again by the pinger - switching its state automatically.

Whenever you flick a switch to its off position via HomeKit, the device is immediately marked as turning off. A shutdown command is executed if it is configured. After the command's completion (or directly if none is configured), the plugin will wait for shutdownGraceTime (defaults to 15s) before continuing to monitor the device using the configured pinging method.

Notes and FAQ

Permissions

This plugin requires extra permissions due to the use of pinging and magic packages. Start Homebridge using sudo homebridge or change capabilities accordingly (setcap cap_net_raw=pe /path/to/bin/node). Systemd users can add the following lines to the [Service] section of Homebridge's unit file (or create a drop-in if unit is packaged by your distro) to achieve this in a more secure way like so:

CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_NET_RAW
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_RAW

Waking an Apple computer

The Macbook configuration example uses caffeinate in order to keep the computer alive after the initial wake-up. See this issue for more information.

Controlling a Windows PC

The Windows configuration example requires the samba-common package to be installed on the server. If you're on Windows 10 and you're signing in with a Microsoft account, the command should use your local username instead of your Microsoft ID (e-mail). Also note that you may or may not need to run net rpc with sudo.

SSH as wake or shutdown command

The Raspberry Pi example uses the sshpass package to sign in on the remote host. The -oStrictHostKeyChecking=no parameter permits any key that the host may present. This usage is heavily discouraged. You should be using SSH keys to authenticate yourself.

Secrets in the configuration

Using username and passwords in a command is heavily discouraged as this stores them in the configuration file in plaintext. Use other authentication methods or environment variables instead.

Contribute

Any contribution is welcome. If you're not able to code it yourself, perhaps someone else is - so post an issue if there's anything on your mind.

If you're new to the open source community, JavaScript, GitHub or just uncertain where to begin - issues labeled "good first issue" are a great place to start. Just comment on an issue you'd like to investigate and you'll get guidance along the way.

Contributors

This repository has evolved thanks to you. Issues reporting bugs, missing features or quirks are always a welcome method to help grow this project.

Beyond all helpful issues and wiki posts, this repository has seen modifications from these helpful contributors:

@AlexGustafsson Author	@cr3ative Previous collaborator	@blubber Previous collaborator
@lnxbil Contributor	@residentsummer Contributor	@JulianRecke Contributor
@tanmaster Contributor	@HenrySeed Logo designer	@conao3 Contributor

Development

# Clone project
git clone https://github.com/AlexGustafsson/homebridge-wol.git && cd homebridge-wol

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Link it (if running homebridge locally)
npm link

# Make sure linting passes
npm run lint

# Try to start Homebridge with the Homebridge Config UI X locally - available on localhost:8080
# with default credentials admin:admin
npm run test

# Run Homebridge, Homebridge Config UI X and Homebridge WoL on the current maintainance node LTS version
docker-compose -f integration/docker-compose.yml up --force-recreate

# If you make changes to the code base, you may have to rebuild the containers before running the above command
docker-compose -f integration/docker-compose.yml build

The things to look out for when running the dockerized environment is:

1. Is the configuration UI working correctly? That is, is the config.schema.json up to date?
2. Can you interact with the accessories as expected? See the logs for full insights.

The accessory MacBook Pro is fully hooked up to simulate a real world MacBook, with proper shutdown over SSH as well as a custom ping command.

The Generic accessory features regular pinging using ICMP messages over IPv4.

The Localhost accessory represents the same instance as that running the Homebridge server. It features only mock configuration. It does feature the full range of configurations available, which should help debugging the configuration UI.