# How to remotely reboot or shutdown your linux server from the command prompt

A quick post on how to restart or turn of a unix-like server.

There are 4 commands that all can restart or shutdown a machine:

- `shutdown`
- `reboot`
- `halt`
- `poweroff`

Many of them can achieve the same things, but this cacophony of commands
guarantees backwards compatibility. This post uses the `shutdown` and `reboot`
commands exclusively.

## Reboot the machine

Log into the server, if you haven’t already:

```shell
$ ssh bob@example.com
```

Then type in:

```shell
$ reboot
```

If you’re not in as root, you need the `sudo` it:

```shell
$ sudo reboot
```

It takes a minute or two to boot.

## Turn the machine off with shutdown

If you run shutdown without params:

```shell
$ shutdown
```

It will schedule the shutdown in one minute. But it can be cancelled using the
`-c` flag:

```shell
$ shutdown -c
```

The `now` param shuts the system down immediately:

```shell
$ shutdown now
```

If you shutdown a cloud VPS server, you usually start it back up from the
provider’s control panel. The `shutdown` command is more handy on computers you
actually have in your house, like a Raspberry PI for example.