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systemctl-halt

Shut down and halt the system

TLDR

Halt the system
$ systemctl halt
Force halt immediately
$ systemctl halt -f
Halt without wall message
$ systemctl halt -f --no-wall
Emergency halt (dangerous)
$ systemctl halt -ff
Schedule halt at time
$ systemctl halt --when 23:00
Schedule halt in duration
$ systemctl halt --when +2h
Cancel scheduled halt
$ systemctl halt --when cancel

SYNOPSIS

systemctl halt [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

systemctl halt shuts down and halts the system, stopping the OS kernel but leaving hardware powered on. This differs from poweroff, which completely powers down the machine, and reboot, which restarts the system.With one `--force`, services are not gracefully stopped. With two `--force` flags, filesystems are not unmounted and may cause data loss.

PARAMETERS

-f, --force

Skip graceful service shutdown
--force --force (-ff)
Immediate halt without cleanup (dangerous)
--no-wall
Don't send wall message to users
--when TIME
Schedule halt at specific time or offset

CAVEATS

Halt leaves the system powered but unresponsive; manual power-off is required. Double-force mode risks data corruption. Scheduled operations can be cancelled with `--when cancel`.

HISTORY

The halt subcommand provides a systemd-native way to halt the system, integrating with the scheduled shutdown mechanism and wall notification system.

SEE ALSO

systemctl-poweroff(1), systemctl-reboot(1), halt(8)