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Johannes Ernst
Asked: 2018-07-31 14:42:35 +0800 CST

What's the difference between poweroff.target, halt.target, reboot.target, shutdown.target and a bunch of others?

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Systemd defines a bunch of special targets that all relate to shutting down a system, like the ones listed in the title of this post. There seem to be more.

man systemd.special gives definitions for them, but does not attempt to differentiate between them.

Just under which circumstances am I supposed to use which of those targets?

systemd

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The shutdown.target can't be called explicitly, it contains the line RefuseManualStart=yes. It is the common part of the other ones, responsible for stopping processes and so on.

    reboot.target means after shutdown, reboot the system.

    poweroff.target means after shutdown, power off the system.

    halt.target means after shutdown, don't do anything (no reboot, no poweroff). The system will just wait in a shutdown state.

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