June 2025
Beginner to intermediate
1180 pages
37h 48m
English
The init system is not only responsible for the initialization of a Linux system, but also for the correct shutdown. This elementary operation can be triggered by a menu command on desktop systems. For a server or in a virtual machine without a graphical user interface, you must use the shutdown, reboot, and halt commands instead. The three commands then forward the restart request to the active init system.
As the name suggests, shutdown shuts down the computer. A time must be specified—either absolutely in the hh:mm format or relatively (+m, i.e., in m minutes) or immediately (now). Optionally, you can also specify a message. This message is visible to all users working in a text console or via SSH:
root# ...
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