Shutting down and rebooting a Linux system

Published 02 Jan 2003 Read time 53 sec(s) (328 views). Linux

When it comes to shutting down and rebooting a Linux system the shutdown command is the only command you need to know to do both jobs

We can use the reboot and init 6 commands to reboot a system, but the shutdown offers the sysadmin more flexibility.

The following sections provide examples of using the shutdown command.

Rebooting a system

Reboot the system in one minute:
```
$ sudo shutdown -r
```
Reboot the system immediately:
```
$ sudo shutdown -r now
```

Shutting down a system

Shutting down your system using the shutdown command follows the same principle as the above reboot commands.

Shutdown the system in one minute:
```
$ sudo shutdown
```
Shutdown the system immediately:
```
$ sudo shutdown now
```
Shutdown the system in 1h30m
```
$ sudo shutdown +90
```

Cancelling a shutdown or reboot request

If you have executed a delayed shutdown or delayed reboot, you can cancel the request by running:

$ sudo shutdown -c

Note: Using the -c option to cancel a pending shutdown may be used to cancel the effect of an invocation of shutdown with a time argument that is not "+0" or "now".