<p>In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command through practical examples and detailed explanations of the most common&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;options.</p>



<p>The&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command brings the system down in a secure way. When the&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;is initiated, all logged-in users and processes are notified that the system is going down, and no further logins are allowed. You can shut down your system immediately or at the specified time.</p>



<h2 id="shutdown-command-syntax">Shutdown Command Syntax</h2>



<p>Before going into how to use the&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command, let’s start by reviewing the basic syntax.</p>



<p>The&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command expressions take the following form:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>shutdown &#91;OPTIONS] &#91;TIME] &#91;MESSAGE]</code></pre>



<ul><li><code>options</code>&nbsp;-&nbsp;<a href="http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/shutdown.8.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Shutdown options</a>&nbsp;such as halt, power-off (the default option) or reboot the system.</li><li><code>time</code>&nbsp;- The time argument specifies when to perform the shutdown process.</li><li><code>message</code>&nbsp;- The message argument specifies a message which will be broadcast to all users.</li></ul>



<p>On the recent Linux distributions&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;is an alias to&nbsp;<code>systemctl</code>&nbsp;and it is available in the system only for compatibility reasons.</p>



<h2 id="how-to-use-the-shutdown-command">How to Use the&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;Command</h2>



<p>Only the root and users with&nbsp;<code>sudo</code>&nbsp;privileges can use&nbsp;<code>crontab</code>&nbsp;command.</p>



<p>When used with no arguments, the&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command will power off the machine.</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown</code></pre>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="http://ec2-13-127-91-65.ap-south-1.compute.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/shutdown.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-763"/></figure>



<p>The shutdown process starts after 1 minute, which is the default time interval.</p>



<h2 id="how-to-shutdown-the-system-at-a-specified-time">How to Shutdown the System at a Specified Time</h2>



<p>The time argument can have two different formats. It can be an absolute time in the format&nbsp;<code>hh:mm</code>&nbsp;and relative time in the format&nbsp;<code>+m</code>&nbsp;where m is the number of minutes from now.</p>



<p>The following example will schedule system shutdown at 11 A.M:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown 11:00</code></pre>



<p>The following example will schedule system&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;in 10 minutes from now:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown +10</code></pre>



<h2 id="how-to-shutdown-the-system-immediately">How to Shutdown the System Immediately</h2>



<p>To shut down your system immediately you can use&nbsp;<code>+0</code>&nbsp;or its alias&nbsp;<code>now</code>:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown now</code></pre>



<h2 id="how-to-broadcast-a-custom-message">How to Broadcast a Custom Message</h2>



<p>To broadcast a custom message along with the standard&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;notification type your message after the time argument.</p>



<p>The following example, will shut down the system in 30 minutes from now and notify the users that a hardware upgrade will be performed:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown +30 "Hardware upgrade"</code></pre>



<p>It is important to mention that when specifying a custom wall message, you must specify a time argument too.</p>



<h2 id="how-to-reboot-the-system">How to Reboot the System</h2>



<p>To reboot the system, use the&nbsp;<code>-r</code>&nbsp;argument:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown -r</code></pre>



<p>You can also specify a time argument and a custom message:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>shutdown -r +5 "Updating kernel"</code></pre>



<p>The command above will reboot the system after 5 minutes and broadcast&nbsp;<code>Updating kernel</code>.</p>



<h2 id="how-to-cancel-a-scheduled-shutdown">How to Cancel a Scheduled Shutdown</h2>



<p>If you have scheduled shutdown and you want to cancel it, you can use the&nbsp;<code>-c</code>&nbsp;argument:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown -c</code></pre>



<p>When canceling a scheduled shutdown, you cannot specify a time argument, but you can still broadcast a message that will be sent to all users.</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>sudo shutdown -c "Canceling the reboot"</code></pre>



<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>



<p>The&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>&nbsp;command allows you to halt, power-off and reboot your Linux system.</p>



<p>To learn more about&nbsp;<code>shutdown</code>, visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://linux.die.net/man/8/shutdown" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">shutdown man</a>&nbsp;page.</p>



<p>If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment.</p>

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the&nbsp;shutdown&nbsp;command through practical examples and detailed explanations of the most com...

Linux Shutdown Command