"shutdown now" on F11 as root problems and app crashes in

[KC8LDO]

Rick;

I just checked the command line version, using "--help", as you suggested, 
and the info is there, of course. I wasn't expecting that sort of default 
behavior. Nothing in the man page that warns about it. Somebody may want to 
consider adding that tid-bit to the man page. I thought the man pages were 
the main source of info for various commands etc., looks like it isn't. 
Guess I'll just have to be more careful. Another day, learn something new.

Thanks;

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Stevens" <ricks at nerd.com>
To: "KC8LDO" <kc8ldo at arrl.net>; "Community assistance, encouragement, and 
advice for using Fedora." <fedora-list at redhat.com>
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: "shutdown now" on F11 as root problems and app crashes in


> KC8LDO wrote:
>> Bob;
>>
>> I did go back and read it, should have done that first. I did read that 
>> one of the options the action taken is system dependent, the "-h" option. 
>> That makes things more interesting.
>>
>> I'm sitting here at work, eating lunch, reading the man page, again, for 
>> the shutdown command using a remote VNC session to my F10 box at home. I 
>> don't see anything that mentions any sort of default action if you fail 
>> to supply one of the options to the shutdown command. All it says in 
>> general at the end of the man page is :
>>
>> "When invoked it generates a runlevel event, with an argument containing 
>> the new runlevel."
>>
>> I'll have to look specifically at the one, man page, on the F11 box later 
>> when I get home. Your comment suggests they are not the same.
>>
>> One last comment. If I was not by the local attached console and saw what 
>> happened, but was working remotely when I issued the "shutdown now" 
>> command, having the system drop down to a CLI interface, single user 
>> mode, with the root prompt showing isn't very comforting. Also my remote 
>> VNC session terminated too. Not my idea of a way to lose control of the 
>> box and give somebody else the chance to have some fun at the "free" root 
>> prompt either. Lucky for me this box is on my home network where I'm the 
>> only one with physical access.
>
> "shutdown --help" on both F10 and F11 result in this data:
>
> "<snip>
> The system is brought down into maintenance (single-user) mode by
> default, you can change this with either the -r or -h option which
> specify a reboot or system halt respectively.  The -h option can be
> further modified with -H or -P to specify whether to halt the system, or
> to power it off afterwards.  The default is left up to the shutdown
> scripts.
> </snip>"
>
> So it goes to run level 1 or "s" by default.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
> - AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
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>