I wrote:
> On most of my machines, "reboot" entered as root causes the machine to
> shutdown and then reboot, as I expect it should. But on one machine,
> the machine does not restart. In the process of trying to understand
> why this might be, I discovered that reboot is not an actual command:
>
> # pwd
> /root
> # which reboot
> /usr/sbin/reboot
> # ls -l /usr/sbin/reboot
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2025-07-10 20:42 /usr/sbin/reboot ->
> ../bin/reboot
> # ls -l /bin/reboot
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 2026-02-06 16:00 /bin/reboot -> ../bin/systemctl
> # ls -l /bin/systemctl
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 322584 2026-02-06 16:00 /bin/systemctl
>
> This seems to say that entering "reboot" invokes "systemctl"
> with no arguments. But the man page for systemctl implies that a
> COMMAND argument is required and gives no hint what happens if none
> is given. In fact, running "systemctl" with no arguments from the
> command line acts like I had entered "systemctl list-units".
>
> BTW, "shutdown" also traces to "systemctl". But on the misbehaving
> machine, "shutdown -r" actually works as expected.
>
> So how is it that entering "reboot" results in a reboot, at least on
> most of my machines? And how can I discover why it leaves the machine
> powered down on one of them?
Samuel Sieb answered:
> When systemctl runs, it checks what name it was called as and changes
> its behaviour according to that. When you boot the system, remove "rhgb
> quiet" from the kernel command line. Then you can see what's happening
> when it tries to reboot. As mentioned in the other email, it's likely a
> system quirk or BIOS (EC) issue. Make sure you have the latest firmware
> for your motherboard.
Thanks for the reply. Is that behavior of systemctl documented
somewhere? I certainly didn't see that in the man page.
I do not have "rhgb quiet" on any of my machines. I like to see what
they do. But that doesn't help in general for this situation. The
problem happens when I run, "ssh machine sudo reboot". In general,
most of my machines don't have a console attached. Digging through
messages and dmesg, I don't see anything obviously wrong.
The reboot problem I described before has been happening for
months. But it won't seem to happen today! I feel like the guy who
takes his car to the mechanic and is told that the symptom described
doesn't appear during his testing. Maybe it was just waiting until
I asked all of you.
--
Dave Close, Compata, Irvine CA +1 714 434 7359
[email protected] [email protected]
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -- Thomas Paine
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