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I just installed a fresh ubuntu server 12.04. I log in over SSH and use sudo -s to get root access. Then I use shutdown now and the server closes the connection. I cannot access the server over SSH, FTP or HTTP anymore, it appears to be off. But it isn't. The server stays on, without being useful. Why? How can I shutdown the server with SSH?

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    Possible dulpicate of http://askubuntu.com/questions/205674/remote-reboot-over-ssh-does-not-restart?rq=1 – Kevin Bowen Feb 04 '13 at 09:51
  • no, rebooting does work –  Feb 04 '13 at 10:05
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    I don't think this issue has anything to do with SSH. It just seems stuck in the shutdown procedure somewhere, or, the ACPI command isn't perfoming an actual power off (just a halt). Do you have physical access to a console of that server to clarify? (or remote-KVM, serial console, etc.) Oh, and have you tried adding the `-h` flag to `shutdown` like this? `shutdown -h now` – gertvdijk Feb 04 '13 at 10:36
  • It shouldn't be stuck, it's a clean installation with only LAMP installed. `shutdown -h now` works (as does `poweroff`, mentioned in the first answer) –  Feb 05 '13 at 09:30

1 Answers1

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You can try this command over SSH:

sudo poweroff

If you want to just send this command over SSH and authenticate in one go, append the command to the regular SSH command:

ssh -t <options> <user>@<hostname> sudo poweroff

Thanks muru for suggesting the -t option to allow for entering the sudo password.

gertvdijk
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dds
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    Also you can specify password: ssh user@host 'echo password | sudo -S poweroff' – dds Feb 04 '13 at 11:10
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    It's generally not a good idea to specify passwords in commands like that (plain text). I've removed the SSH part from your question as the `poweroff` part is what it is about (and a good suggestion). Removed my earlier comment crititizing that now. +1 – gertvdijk Feb 04 '13 at 11:16
  • @gertvdijk - If I do not put the password in the ssh command, how can I shut down the machine in just one line of command? – Casper Mar 11 '17 at 19:06
  • @Casper Added :) – gertvdijk Mar 12 '17 at 09:24
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    @gertvdijk If `sudo` wants to ask for a password, perhaps `-t` would be needed (or an askpass program) – muru Mar 12 '17 at 09:47
  • I suggest ssh root@ip halt which is similar to `-t` if you are allowed to login as root. Why does `'halt'` with quotation marks not work? I pass a string which is a cmd to ssh. Maybe it is interpreted as `string`. – Timo Aug 03 '21 at 20:01