Section 5.5. Shutting Down the System

5.5. Shutting Down the System

When you shut down the system or reboot, a controlled process occurs so that the system is left in a good state. This process is:

• All running startup items are called with the stop parameter, giving them a chance to shut down gracefully.

• All running processes are stopped.

• The system syncs the filesystems with their in-memory caches.

• The system hands off control back to Open Firmware.

• Open Firmware either shuts down the system or reboots, depending on the instructions that the system handed to it as it shut down.

Normally, you'll shut down the system by selecting Shut Down. You can also shut down from the command line using either the reboot or the shutdown command. To reboot the system, simply enter the following:

 $ sudo reboot

To shut down the system:

 $ sudo shutdown -h now

When you reboot or shut down from the command line, all running applications are automatically and promptly terminated. This means any unsaved changes will be lost, so make sure this is what you want to do before issuing either of these commands.