shutdown
Bring the system down safely, notifying users and stopping services.
Synopsis
shutdown [OPTION]... [TIME] [MESSAGE]
Examples
sudo shutdown -h now
sudo shutdown -r +10 'Rebooting for updates'
sudo shutdown -c
sudo shutdown -h 22:00
Common options
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| -h | Halt after shutdown |
| -r | Reboot after shutdown |
| -c | Cancel pending shutdown |
| now | Shutdown immediately |
| +N | Shutdown in N minutes |
About shutdown
The `shutdown` command bring the system down safely, notifying users and stopping services. Service and system commands manage daemons, scheduled tasks, system boot, and shutdown operations.
Modern Linux distributions use systemd for service management, though some still support SysVinit scripts. Understanding these commands is essential for deploying and maintaining production services.
The command accepts 5 commonly used flags shown above, though the full set of options is available in the man page (`man shutdown`). The 4 examples on this page cover typical real-world usage patterns that you can copy and adapt for your own workflows.
Related commands
More Service & System Commands
Other commands in the Service & System category