Shut down computer from keyboard

Question

Is there a keyboard shortcut available to shutdown the computer?

I know I can use the Power button, but I would like to be able to it from the keyboard.

If such a shortcut does not exist already, how do I set one?

Solution 1

In older versions of Ubuntu Ctrl + Alt + Del will bring up options for shutdown, restart, suspend and hibernate. These can then be selected with the arrow keys and Enter.

For a single hit solution in later versions you can use this script to create a keyboard shortcut. First you need to download the script and save it on your computer. Next you need to make it executable by right clicking on it and going to properties → Permissions → Allow executing file as a program. Finally go to System Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts and click the small plus symbol. For the command type in

/home/toby/power.sh shutdown

or whatever path you saved the script to.

Suspend, hibernate and restart are also available by this method; just replace shutdown in the above command.

Solution 2

There are some low level keyboard shortcuts available. They talk directly to the kernel and can break things. You probably shouldn't use these. But in the interest of counter-acting the atrocious answers recommending this method, here's how to use the SysReq button to shutdown or reboot your system. If your cpu bursts into flames because of these incantations, well, can't say I didn't warn you.

Graceful

Reboot

There is a mnemonic here: busier backwards. As in, you are too busy to shutdown properly, so you are doing it backwards.

alt + SysRq + r , e , i , s , u , b

I borrowed this from wikipedia*:

unRaw      (take control of keyboard back from X),
 tErminate (send SIGTERM to all processes, allowing them to terminate gracefully),
 kIll      (send SIGKILL to all processes, forcing them to terminate immediately),
  Sync     (flush data to disk),
  Unmount  (remount all filesystems read-only),
reBoot     (durr)

Shutdown

This is the same except at the end use o for Off instead of b for reBoot.

alt + SysRq + r , e , i , s , u , o

Destructive

This is like yanking the power cord out. You risk destroying recently saved data (files not quite actually written to disk) and you will definitely lose anything unsaved. On the upside, it is quick and to the point.

reBoot: alt + SysRq + b

shut Off: alt + SysRq + o

Use in graphical desktop environment

Under graphical environments like Unity, alt + SysRq takes a screenshot. You must hold down ctrl as well.

Thank you wikipedia for the information in this post.

Solution 3

11.10 and later

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del leads to the logout dialog. If you need the old functionality back you will have to define your own shortcut by opening Keyboard -> Shortcuts from System settings and add this command:

gnome-session-quit --power-off

Alternatively we can use a shoutdown only dialog as shown in this answer

/usr/lib/indicator-session/gtk-logout-helper --shutdown

Note

Before we can use Ctrl+Alt+Del we will have to assign another shortcut to logout.

---

11.04 and earlier

Using default keyboard settings pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del will open the following window:

The first entry is selected by default for an immediate shutdown by just pressing Return in addition.

There also is a countdown that shuts down your system after 60s without any further keyboard action.

Solution 4

Well, an easy one to try is to open the keyboard shortcuts.

If using Unity, press the window key/superkey and then type shor and select keyboard shortcuts. Here you can then create a new shortcut and then assign a key combo to shut your pc down… without using your power button!

The command for your shortcut should be:

/usr/lib/indicator-session/gtk-logout-helper -s

Which will shut you down!!

Here is mine which I did to test it:

Solution 5

You could also launch a Terminal window with Ctrl+Alt+T and then type sudo halt.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

For some reason many things are changed in 12.04, and most answer will not work.

[Simon]

This is not a keyboard shortcut.

[Joe the Person]

It does not require a Mouse to do it. Also, sudo shutdown now works too. Use the -rflag to restart, instead.

[umpirsky]

You know what is weird? When you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog that pops up does not get focus :) Thanks.

[Takkat]

uh - that's weird indeed, as it does get focus on my system here. You could leave it to shut down after the countdown however.

[Piskvor left the building]

You seem to be offering a cargo-cult incantation ("this is magic - it works, but I have no idea how"): unRaw, tErminate, Unmount, Sync, reBoot? If you've umounted the disks for writing, what is the point of syncing? (Hint: none) Also, RSEOUI is unRaw,Sync,tErminate,shut Off,Unmount,kIll - wtf? You're sending the last two commands to a computer that's turned off; also, the sync is pointless as E will trigger a graceful exit - more disk writes. For more info, see this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key#Magic_commands Please don't give advice without knowing what it does.

[Piskvor left the building]

(Yes, your SysRq incantation will work - but somewhat accidentally. Note also that this is not a very clean way of initiating a shutdown.)

[Piskvor left the building]

Congratulations, you have directly shut off your system without any sort of cleanup - anything that's still in write caches will be lost, and non-journalled filesystems may get corrupt; that's not to mention any network connections. Your answer is technically correct - this will indeed reliably shut down the computer, but you may want to disconnect the hardware electrical plug instead - that's even more reliable, and has the same effect.

[Piskvor left the building]

C+A+Bksp will shut down the X server (not enabled by default in new Ubuntu installs, you need to enable this in Keyboard options), bringing you back to GDM (user login); if you have graphical login, this will indeed log you out - in a rather forceful way. You are correct that this is somewhat safer than messing with SysRq, but it's still an emergency option at best.

[umpirsky]

This does not work in Ubuntu 11.10. Now it offers just log out button.

[umpirsky]

This does not work in Ubuntu 11.10. Now it offers just log out button.

[umpirsky]

That's what I tried, but when I try to assign shortcut Ctl + Alt + Del logout window pops up, that's why I try to remove it in the first place :) When I try some other shortcut, it does not work as well, it just stays disabled.

[Eliah Kagan]

To succeed, the halt command must be run as root (so run sudo halt instead of just halt). Also, by default, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace doesn't actually do anything on an Ubuntu system. You can use Alt+SysRq+K instead, or you can re-enabled it by editing a configuration files. Details here.

[Eliah Kagan]

@Piskvor While you're right that this is not a good way to shut down your computer, it is a little better than pulling the plug. The computer shuts itself off with this method. In particular, hard drives' read/write heads are unlikely to crash down onto the platters and physically damage the drive. But if the computer is not responding at all and must be force shut down (rather than restarted with Alt+SysRq+REISUB), Alt + SysRq + R E I S U O should be used (see this article).

[Piskvor left the building]

@Eliah Kagan: Oh, anything more sophisticated than physically cutting the power is (even if negligibly) better - and the "raising elephants" sequence which you mention is the accepted way of doing this - but still, the SysRq commands are an emergency, last-resort measure, to be used when everything else fails. (As for physical damage, any hard drives recent enough to be still operational - i.e. approximately 15 years old or newer - will automatically park themselves on power loss, so the risk of physical damage is very theoretical.)

[Robin Winslow]

this one's better

[Lonnie Best]

ctrl-alt-delete doesn't work in 14.04 either: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1403289

[Lonnie Best]

Wouldn't this require a password. If so, this would defeat convenience.

[robocat]

Hallelujah! Press Enter again at the shutdown dialog to do the shutdown. Works because: Alt-F10 takes you to the menu, left wraps around to the right, up wraps around to the bottom, enter to do "Shutdown" menu item, Enter again to click the click the shutdown icon button (or left arrow, Enter, to restart instead).

[muru]

It probably started working when systemd became init, which would be in 15.04.

[Jonathan Hartley]

I can't find this command on Ubuntu 15.10. For an alternative command that lets you shutdown, suspend, logout, etc, see my answer very far down this page. Search page for 'systemctl'

[flowtron]

In Ubuntu 18.04 bionic I added a custom shortcut as described but the command "gnome-session-quit --power-off" which gives you quick access to reboot/shutdown, picked Ctrl+Alt+Ins as combo .. close but no cigar kind of humor ;-)

[Takkat]

@PeterMortensen: all I can say is that gnome-session-quit --power-off still works as expected in my vanilla 19.04. install. Try with the additional option --force to ignore possible inhibitors.

[Pablo Bianchi]

@PeterMortensen Now is Super+F10 > arrow keys > Enter