hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2697.txt

Episode: 2697
Title: HPR2697: The Linux Shutdown Command Explained
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2697/hpr2697.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 07:37:48

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This is HPR episode 2697 entitled The Linux Shutdown Command Explained.
It is hosted by NAWP and is about 7 minutes long and can rim a clean flag.
The summary is a short podcast about The Linux Shutdown Command.
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Good day. My name is JWP and I want to talk to you about The Linux Shutdown Command.
The Linux Shutdown Command allows you to shut down reboot or schedule a shutdown of your system.
The shutdown command, so you have shutdown, you have a space, you have options,
you have a space, you have a time, you have a space, and then you have a message if you want.
The options can specify if you want to halt, power off, reboot, etc.
The time you can specify when you want to perform a shutdown,
you can send a custom message to all the logged in users for the message.
If you're a multi-system, I have a few multi-system machines and so
friends that's an internet bulletin board or something like this.
If you simply use the shutdown command, it will start a process after one minute.
For instance, as an example, if you say shoot it or shut down, it will say shutdown scheduled
for Monday, 2018, 11, 19, and it will shut down the system after a minute.
And of course, you can cancel this by using shutdown space minus C.
To shut down the system immediately, you can use shutdown space plus zero, or the one that I've
always used is pseudo shutdown now. Interestingly, you can schedule a system shutdown, and I don't know
why would you want to do this? Well, for instance, I burn a lot. I'm trying to burn my DVD collection now.
And so I put two DVDs into my Linux systems downstairs, and I try to do what I want today.
Well, I don't want these things to run all the time because it uses a lot of power throughout the day,
throughout the day. And so I'll put in the CD and I'll say, okay, well everything should be
over with in 45 minutes. And then I'll say pseudo shutdown plus 45, and then it'll be over with.
If you want to shut down, for instance, at a basic time, you can also say pseudo shutdown, for instance,
1600 in the format for that would be space after shutdown, 16 colon zero zero.
It's needless to say that the reference time and time zone is a system time itself.
So five minutes before the schedule shutdown, the system won't allow any login activity,
which means the new user cannot log into the system within five minutes of a schedule shutdown.
You can also restart the system with the shutdown command. There is a separate reboot command,
but you don't need to learn a new command just for rebooting the system.
You can use the Linux shutdown command, which is what I've always used.
And of course, the shutdown command is pseudo shutdown space minus R.
And the behavior is the same as the shutdown command. Instead of the system shutdown, it will be restarted.
So if you use the shutdown without any argument, it will schedule a
time for reboot after one minute. You can schedule reboots the same way you did with shutdown.
For instance, shutdown minus R plus 30 or shutdown are minus now.
Okay, so you can broadcast a custom message also.
So if you're in a multi-user environment, like I said before, like a bulletin board,
there are several users logged into the system. You can send a custom broadcast message,
by default, all the users will receive the notification about a schedule shutdown.
It's time and you can customize the broadcast message itself.
So pseudo shutdown 1,600 and then after 1,600 again, 1,600 and then you put
space, quotation systems will shut down for a hardware upgrade.
For hardware upgrade, please save your work. And then you end it with a quote, and then it'll tell
the people that you can use the shutdown with the K option to initiate a fake shutdown.
So the system will essentially send to all users.
To cancel a scheduled shutdown, you would simply do pseudo shutdown minus C.
And then it'll broadcast that the shutdown has been canceled.
So there's halt versus power off. And this is what I didn't know. So
the minus H option terminates all processes and shuts down the CPU.
If you use the minus P option, they're using capital H and capital P and this one. But I've always
used the little H. So the P pretty much turns off the unit itself, lights, system, everything.
Historically, other computers use the halt system and then print a message like it's okay to power off
now. And computers turned off through physical power switches. These days, halt should automatically
power off the systems thanks to ACPI. Okay, so guys, those were the most common and useful examples
of the Linux shutdown command. I hope you enjoyed it. If you need to get in touch,
jwp5athopmail.com. Thank you very much. You have a great day. And then enjoy, uh, joy yourselves.
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