SHUTDOWN(8)                          BSD                           SHUTDOWN(8)



NAME
     shutdown - close down the system at a given time

SYNOPSIS
     /etc/shutdown [ -k ] [ -r ] [ -h ] [ -n ] time [ warning-message ... ]

DESCRIPTION
     shutdown provides an automated shutdown procedure which a super-user can
     use to notify users nicely when the system is shutting down, saving them
     from system administrators, hackers, and gurus, who would otherwise not
     bother with niceties.

     time is the time at which shutdown will bring the system down and may be
     the word now (indicating an immediate shutdown) or specify a future time
     in one of two formats:  +number and hour:min.  The first form brings the
     system down in number minutes and the second brings the system down at
     the time of day indicated (as a 24-hour clock).

     At intervals which get closer together as the shutdown approaches,
     warning messages are displayed at the terminals of all users on the
     system.  Five minutes before shutdown, or immediately if shutdown is in
     less than 5 minutes, logins are disabled by creating /etc/nologin and
     writing a message there.  If this file exists when a user attempts to log
     in, login(1) prints its contents and exits.  The file is removed just
     before shutdown exits.

     At shutdown time a message is written in the system log, containing the
     time of shutdown, who ran shutdown and the reason.  Then a terminate
     signal is sent to init to bring the system down to single-user state.

     The time of the shutdown and the warning message are placed in
     /etc/nologin and should be used to inform the users about when the system
     will be back up and why it is going down (or anything else).

OPTIONS
     -r   Exec reboot(8).

     -h   Exec halt(8),

     -k   Avoid shutting the system down. (-k is to make people think the
          system is going down!)

     -n   Prevent the normal sync(2) before stopping.

     The -f option is not supported by Domain/OS BSD.

FILES
     /etc/nologin              tells login not to let anyone log in

BUGS
     Only allows you to kill the system between now and 23:59 if you use the
     absolute time for shutdown.

SEE ALSO
     login(1), reboot(8)