SHUTDOWN(8)

✨ shutdown(8) — the halt/poweroff/reboot queen 💅

ok bestie, welcome to shutdown — the manual page for the command that literally puts your machine to bed (or wakes it up, we love range 🌈). This is shutdown from the shutdown section of the manual, and she is iconic.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

shutdown — halt, power off or reboot the machine. that's it, that's the job 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

shutdown [OPTIONS...] [TIME] [WALL...]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So shutdown may be used to halt, power off, or reboot the machine. simple queen behaviour, no cap 👑

The first argument may be a time string (which is usually "now", because we are all impatient girlies). Optionally, this may be followed by a wall message to be sent to all logged-in users before going down — like a little goodbye text to everyone on the system 🫶

The time string may either be in the format "hh:mm" for hour/minutes specifying the time to execute the shutdown at, specified in 24h clock format ⏰. Alternatively it may be in the syntax "+m" referring to the specified number of minutes m from now. "now" is an alias for "+0", i.e. for triggering an immediate shutdown. If no time argument is specified, "+1" is implied.

ok so this part is lowkey important: the time string specifies the earliest point in time the shutdown may take place — it is a lower bound only 🫧 the shutdown is executed as soon as possible, but not before the specified time. Specifying a time that already elapsed (for example an "hh:mm" time earlier today) is not an error and results in an immediate shutdown. See the discussion of --when= in systemctl(1) for details 👀

⚠️ note that to specify a wall message you must specify a time argument, too. no time, no wall, them's the rules bestie 😭

If the time argument is used, 5 minutes before the system goes down the /run/nologin file is created to ensure that further logins shall not be allowed 🚫 — it's giving "we're closed, go home".

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

The following options are understood:

• --help — Print a short help text and exit. tiny little helper, we stan 💜
• -H, --halt — Halt the machine.
• -P, --poweroff — Power the machine off (the default — she's the main character here 👑).
• -r, --reboot — Reboot the machine 🔥
• -h — The same as --poweroff, but does not override the action to take if it is "halt". E.g. shutdown --reboot -h means "poweroff", but shutdown --halt -h means "halt". (yes she's the chaotic sibling of --poweroff, iykyk 🙈)
• -k — Do not halt, power off, or reboot, but just write the wall message. fake shutdown, real vibes ✨
• --no-wall — Do not send wall message before halt, power off, or reboot. silent exit, no goodbye 💀
• -c — Cancel a pending shutdown. This may be used to cancel the effect of an invocation of shutdown with a time argument that is not "+0" or "now". (the "jk bestie, never mind" flag 🎀)
• --show — Show a pending shutdown action and time if there is any.

🌟 Added in version 250. new-ish but already slaying.

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise. clean and simple, we love a girl who communicates 💅

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🧚 COMPATIBILITY 🧚

The shutdown command in previous init systems (including sysvinit) defaulted to single-user mode instead of powering off the machine. To change into single-user mode, use systemctl rescue instead. okay so that's the old lore, don't come for her 🫶

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

systemd(1), systemctl(1), halt(8), wall(1) — the whole friend group, go say hi 💖

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and that's the page babes 🌸 this whole thing is from systemd 259.10 and the page is dated for SHUTDOWN(8) — one last little sign-off from the manpage herself: systemd 259.10 / SHUTDOWN(8), periodt 💅✨