poweroff

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.

-f, --force

Force immediate shutdown without system manager

Write wtmp record without actual shutdown

Halt instead of power off

Reboot instead of power off

Don't write wtmp record

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

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

shutdown(8), halt(8), reboot(8), systemctl(1)