So that’s mainly my question: Is it possible to use WoL to power on the host server?
I mean, I have Home Assistant OS installed on Generic x86-64 computer; an old laptop that I’m using to start learning HA. It supports WoL (at least that’s what the manual says and the Bios too) and I have it connected it to network with an ethernet cable (directly to the router).
According to my understanding, configuring it in windows implies that not only the hardware must be compatible but also the software (driver) so I’m a little bit confuse how to do that on HaaS.
Finally, I just want to add that I want to do this to power on the system (HaaS / server / host) after a power outage.
Short answer, no. Wake on lan can’t power anything. Poe can power poe devices.
If you wanna learn ha dump that laptop, get yourself some used comp, buy ram for it, ssd and install debian.
I think the previous poster may have misunderstood your question. You don’t want to power the device, you want to power on the device, ie turn it on remotely.
I’m also not sure why you would need to “dump your laptop” and spend money at this stage - you may want to in the future, the main reason I can think of, is for better power efficiency. At the end of the day an old laptop is a Computer with RAM and Storage.
Although you mention Windows you also say you have Home Assistant OS installed on Generic x86-64 computer, I assume you’ve installed HAOS on bare metal as per these instructions Generic x86-64 - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)?
Unfortunately, I have no idea if HAOS supports WoL and messing around directly in HAOS is not recommended - instructions for accessing it are here Debugging the Home Assistant Operating System | Home Assistant Developer Docs (home-assistant.io) if you want to try. (If I understand correctly the normal SSH addon only gets you to a container running Home Assistant Core, rather than the underlying Operating System).
If WoL is not supported by HAOS, you’ll probably need to install debian and docker yourself. Then you can follow these instructions to install home assistant Install Home Assistant Container. This will give you more control of the underlying O/S than using HAOS.
WoL does normally not require anything special from a modern OS.
The network card will receive a magic packet which will trigger the power on setting on the motherboard and from there on the computer will start up like someone press the power button physically.
I wrote modern OS because the OS can on some hardware setups shutdown the computer to a state where the WoL does not work, but all ACPI aware OSes should be able to do WoL if the netcard and motherboard support it.
Have you gone throught the laptop BIOS settings (probably under ‘power’ or similar) to check if there is a setting which controls what the laptop does after power outage? Some BIOS have a setting called ‘AC Power recovery’ or ‘Restore on AC power loss’. If you have this setting, then that would probably take away the need for WOL?
That setting is rarely on laptops, since their battery will handle even quite long power outages.
Many desktop, workstation and especially servers have that setting.
I can only recall Dell laptops that sometimes have a setting to power on when charger is getting connected.
