Ungraceful shutdowns

[Thomas Grossi]

The system command /etc/shutdown (8) schedules a system halt or reboot and
sends out messages to warn users.  We made this command setuid so that any
user could call it and also wrote a script (of the same name) to call it
with the appropriate options (usually we want to reboot right away).  If
you can assume that your users are responsible people and won't abuse the
command, there's probably no better way to stop a system gracefully.

Thomas Grossi
Cap Sogeti Innovation
Grenoble, France