Intro To 'shutdown' Command In Linux

2024-08-30 - By Robert Elder

     I use the 'shutdown' command to shut down my computer:

shutdown

Remotely Shut Down Computer

     I can use the 'shutdown' command to remotely shut down my desktop server.  First, I'll ssh into the remote machine using this command:

ssh my-remote-machine

     Then, I can run this command to start the shut down process:

shutdown

     On my machine, the 'shutdown' command will default to using a timeout value of one minute before the shutdown sequence begins.

     After running the above 'shutdown' command, I'll see output similar to this:

Shutdown scheduled for Fri 2024-08-30 14:00:16 EDT, use 'shutdown -c' to cancel.

Shut Down Immediately

     You can specify the word 'now' to shut down immediately:

shutdown now

Shut Down Message

     You can also provide a shutdown message that will be broadcast to all logged in users:

shutdown now "This is my favourite shutdown message."

     The message that other users see will look something like this:

Broadcast message from root@robert-Inspiron-3521 on pts/0 (Fri 2024-08-30 14:03:16 EDT):

This is my favourite shutdown message.
The system is going down for poweroff at Fri 2024-08-30 14:04:16 EDT!

Reboot Instead Of Shut Down

     The '-r' flag can be used to reboot the machine instead:

shutdown -r now "This is my favourite reboot message."

     And that's why the 'shutdown' command is my favourite Linux command.

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