Shutdown of the Workstation
There are a number of different ways to shutdown a workstation. In most cases the method you choose will depend on personal preference.
Before describing the different methods, some background information may be useful. In general, there are 2 main reasons for shutting down a workstation:
1 You wish to halt the system, after which the power will be switched off. After the workstation has halted, a message will be displayed indicating that the power may be turned off.
2 You wish to reboot (restart) the system. In most cases the workstation will reboot automatically.
There are a number of possible options, the most important of which are:
• Do you wish to shutdown the workstation immediately, or do you wish to give the other workstation users a 'grace period' so that they can save their work, etc.
• If you are sure that nobody else is using the workstation, then you will probably prefer to shutdown the workstation immediately. If however other people are using the workstation, they will probably be grateful if they are given a warning message and a suitable grace period (e.g. 10 minutes) to save their work.
• Do you wish to perform a graceful shutdown, whereby each process is given the chance to tidy up and exit gracefully, or do you wish to force a relatively quick shutdown, whereby the various processes will be forcibly terminated.
In most cases a graceful shutdown is not necessary. The exception to this is certain database systems, and other software packages that must be given a chance to shutdown gracefully.
The main ways to shutdown a workstation are:
• Using the shutdown command,
• Using the reboot command,
• Using the power switch.