Note: This article was originally published in 2013. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current Ubuntu documentation for the latest information.

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn shutdown or restart an ubuntu server via ssh. Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution based on Debian, widely used for servers and development environments.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • A system running Ubuntu (desktop or server edition)
  • Terminal access with sudo privileges
  • Basic familiarity with Linux command line

How to: Shutdown or Restart an (http://www.ubuntu.com “Ubuntu (operating system)”) via SSH

If you want to remotely restart or shutdown an Ubuntu Server when connected via SSH you simply need to know the following commands (and use them of course): sudo shutdown and sudo reboot   As always the accompanying man pages are a great resource:

  Man Shutdown:

shutdown(8) System Manager’s Manual shutdown(8) NAME shutdown - bring the system down SYNOPSIS shutdown … TIME DESCRIPTION shutdown arranges for the system to be brought down in a safe way. All logged-in users are notified that the system is going down and, within the last five minutes of TIME, new logins are prevented. TIME may have different formats, the most common is simply the word ‘now’ which will bring the system down immediately. Other valid formats are +m, where m is the number of minutes to wait until shutting down and hh:mm which specifies the time on the 24hr clock. If no option is specified, the default action is to bring the system down into single-user mode. Once TIME has elapsed, shutdown sends a request to the init(8) daemon to bring the system down into the appropriate runlevel. This is performed by emitting the runlevel(7) event, which includes the new runlevel in the RUNLEVEL environment variable as well as the previous runlevel (obtained from the environment or from /var/run/utmp) in the PRE‐ VLEVEL variable. An additional INIT_HALT variable may be set, this will contain the value HALT when bringing the system down for halt and POWEROFF when bringing the system down for power off. OPTIONS -r Requests that the system be rebooted after it has been brought down. -h Requests that the system be either halted or powered off after it has been brought down, with the choice as to which left up to the system. -H Requests that the system be halted after it has been brought down. -P Requests that the system be powered off after it has been brought down. -c Cancels a running shutdown. TIME is not specified with this option, the first argument is MESSAGE. -k Only send out the warning messages and disable logins, do not actually bring the system down. ENVIRONMENT RUNLEVEL shutdown will read the current runlevel from this environment variable if set in preference to reading from /var/run/utmp FILES /var/run/utmp Where the current runlevel will be read from; this file will also be updated with the new runlevel. /var/log/wtmp A new runlevel record will be appended to this file for the new runlevel. NOTES The Upstart init(8) daemon does not keep track of runlevels itself, instead they are implemented entirely by its userspace tools. See runlevel(7) for more details. AUTHOR Written by Scott James Remnant [email protected] REPORTING BUGS Report bugs at https://launchpad.net/upstart/+bugs COPYRIGHT Copyright © 2009 (http://www.canonical.com/ “Canonical Ltd.”) This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. SEE ALSO runlevel(7) init(8) telinit(8) reboot(8) Upstart 2009-07-09 shutdown(8)

  Man Reboot:

reboot(8) System Manager’s Manual reboot(8) NAME reboot, halt, poweroff - reboot or stop the system SYNOPSIS reboot … halt … poweroff … DESCRIPTION These programs allow a system administrator to reboot, halt or poweroff the system. When called with —force or when in runlevel 0 or 6, this tool invokes the reboot(2) system call itself (with REBOOTCOMMAND argument passed) and directly reboots the system. Otherwise this simply invokes the shutdown(8) tool with the appropriate arguments without passing REBOOTCOMMAND argument. Before invoking reboot(2), a shutdown time record is first written to /var/log/wtmp OPTIONS -f, —force Does not invoke shutdown(8) and instead performs the actual action you would expect from the name. -p, —poweroff Instructs the halt command to instead behave as poweroff. -w, —wtmp-only Does not call shutdown(8) or the reboot(2) system call and instead only writes the shutdown record to /var/log/wtmp —verbose Outputs slightly more verbose messages when rebooting, useful for debugging problems with shutdown. ENVIRONMENT RUNLEVEL reboot will read the current runlevel from this environment variable if set in preference to reading from /var/run/utmp FILES /var/run/utmp Where the current runlevel will be read from; this file will also be updated with the runlevel record being replaced by a shutdown time record. /var/log/wtmp A new runlevel record for the shutdown time will be appended to this file. AUTHOR Written by Scott James Remnant [email protected] REPORTING BUGS Report bugs at https://launchpad.net/upstart/+bugs COPYRIGHT Copyright © 2009 Canonical Ltd. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. SEE ALSO shutdown(8) telinit(8) runlevel(8) Upstart 2009-07-09 reboot(8)

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Summary

You’ve successfully learned shutdown or restart an ubuntu server via ssh. If you run into any issues, double-check the prerequisites and ensure your Ubuntu environment is properly configured.