SHUTDOWN(8) shutdown SHUTDOWN(8)

.SH "NAME" shutdown - Halt, power off or reboot the machine

.SH "SYNOPSIS"

.HP 216u

**shutdown**  
\[OPTIONS...]  
\[TIME]  
\[WALL...]

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.PP **shutdown** may be used to halt, power off, or reboot the machine.

.PP The first argument may be a time string (which is usually now). Optionally, this may be followed by a wall message to be sent to all logged-in users before going down.

.PP 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.

.PP 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)](/man/os/systemd/systemctl.1) for details.

.PP Note that to specify a wall message you must specify a time argument, too.

.PP 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.

.SH "OPTIONS"

.PP The following options are understood:

.PP **--help**

Print a short help text and exit.

.RE

.PP **-H**, **--halt**

Halt the machine.

.RE

.PP **-P**, **--poweroff**

Power the machine off (the default).

.RE

.PP **-r**, **--reboot**

Reboot the machine.

.RE

.PP **-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".

.RE

.PP **-k**

Do not halt, power off, or reboot, but just write the wall message.

.RE

.PP **--no-wall**

Do not send wall message before halt, power off, or reboot.

.RE

.PP **-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.

.RE

.PP **--show**

Show a pending shutdown action and time if there is any.

Added in version 250.

.RE

.SH "EXIT STATUS"

.PP On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

.SH "COMPATIBILITY"

.PP 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.

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.PP [**systemd**(1)](/man/os/systemd/systemd.1), [**systemctl**(1)](/man/os/systemd/systemctl.1), [**halt**(8)](/man/os/systemd/halt.8), [**wall**(1)](/man/os/systemd/wall.1)

systemd 262.2

---

Document: shutdown(8) from systemd 262.2-r1 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/systemd/systemd