poweroff

Shut down and power off the system

TLDR

Power off the system

$ poweroff

Halt the system

$ poweroff --halt

Reboot the system

$ poweroff --reboot

Power off immediately (force)

$ poweroff -f

Write wtmp entry only

$ poweroff -w

SYNOPSIS

poweroff [-f|--force] [-w|--wtmp-only] [--halt] [--reboot]

poweroff shuts down the system and turns off power. On systems with ACPI or APM support, it signals hardware to cut power after shutdown completes.The command is typically a symlink to systemctl or the init system's shutdown mechanism. It ensures clean system shutdown with proper service termination.

PARAMETERS

-f, --force

Force immediate shutdown without system manager

-w, --wtmp-only

Write wtmp record without actual shutdown

--halt

Halt instead of power off

--reboot

Reboot instead of power off

-n, --no-wtmp

Don't write wtmp record

INSTALL

sudo apt install runit-init

CAVEATS

Force option may cause data loss. Requires root privileges. Behavior varies by init system. Virtual machines may not honor power-off signal.

HISTORY

poweroff has been a standard Unix command for system shutdown. Modern implementations integrate with systemd or other init systems while maintaining the traditional interface.