shutdown

Other Definitions
shutdown (dict)

In UNIX, the shutdown command can be used to shut down (turn off) or reboot a computer. One commonly issued form of this command is shutdown -h now, which will shut down a system immediately. Another one is shutdown -r now to reboot. Unlike in many other operating systems, you may also specify an exact time or a delay: shutdown -h 20:00 will turn the computer off at 8:00 PM, and shutdown -r -t 60 will automatically reboot the machine in 60 seconds (one minute) of issuing the command. The complete syntax from the Linux version of the command is as follows.

  Usage:    shutdown -akrhfnc secs time message                    -a:      use /etc/shutdown.allow                    -k:      don't really shutdown, only warn.                    -r:      reboot after shutdown.                    -h:      halt after shutdown.                    -f:      do a 'fast' reboot (skip fsck).                    -F:      Force fsck on reboot.                    -n:      do not go through "init" but go down real fast.                    -c:      cancel a running shutdown.                    -t secs: delay between warning and kill signal.                    ** the "time" argument is mandatory! (try "now") **

Please note that you must be the superuser (usually root) to shut the system down, for fairly obvious reasons.

Shutdown

See also