"halt" does not power off on Ubuntu Server 12.04

[CharlesA]

Howdy,

I ran into this while I was testing Precise on a VM as well as on the physical machine itself.

If in run this:

sudo halt

The machine halts but doesn't power off. This didn't occur in 10.04 - halt would power the machine off.

However, if I issue:

sudo shutdown -h now

The machine powers off fine.

I found a bug for 11.10 here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rt/+bug/880240

But it seems to also apply to 12.04.

Doesn't halt and shutdown -h now do the exact same thing?

Thanks,
Charles

Oh right system specs:

Ubuntu 12.04 x64
i7 2600K
16GB DDR3
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 with latest bios
500GB HDD

[mips]

Weird, but does halt not just call shutdown?

[CharlesA]

Weird, but does halt not just call shutdown?

That's what I thought, which is why it seems so strange.

I asked Haqking to test his 12.04 install in VBox and his shutdown fine where mine just sat there at the splash screen after it halted.

So strange and I have no idea where to even look for differences.

I only mention VBox cuz it exhibits the same thing the physical machine does.

[Zukaro]

I've never used the halt command so I know nothing about it, but I know "poweroff" also shuts down a Linux machine.

(*that probably doesn't help you but I've posted it anyways *)

[haqking]

CharlesA


There are some differences i believe, however halt should by default call -p which is to halt and poweroff.

Try halt -p to see if that works ?

Edit: ok so in my 12.04 which was upgraded from 11.10 VM halt works.

I just did a fresh 12.04 VM install and halt did not poweroff, however halt -p does

Peace

[CharlesA]

Thanks, that helps clear it up.

I still wonder if it is a bug cuz it works fine on an upgrade but not on a clean install.

I'll try it on an 10.04 machine upgraded to 12.04 and see if it reacts the same.

[CharlesA]

Update: I upgraded a 10.04 vm to 12.04 and halt has the same behavior. poweroff works fine and powers off the box. halt -p works fine as well.

That VM was on the same host that exhibits the halt issue.

Physical machine (Core2Duo E8500 3.16Ghz, Gigabyte EP45-UD3R mobo) Same results with halt but halt -p works fine. Clean install of Precise server.

Physical machine (Pentium Dualcore E6500 2.93Ghz, Asus P5Q SE mobo), same halt results and halt -p works fine.

Running:

sudo halt -p

Powers off fine, but halt just halts the system.


The odd thing is in the bug report I linked in the OP, comment #4 that says:

This is due to "halt", no longer powering off the machine as well, now one has to tell it to poweroff explicitly.

Where is this documented??

I checked /etc/default/halt on both my 10.04 box (which powers off when halt is issued) and my 12.04 box (which doesn't) and it is the same:

charles@Lucid:~$ cat /etc/default/halt
# Default behaviour of shutdown -h / halt. Set to "halt" or "poweroff".
HALT=poweroff

EDIT: I just checked on a Ubuntu desktop install and the same thing occurs. I have added a comment to the bug report linked to in the OP.

EDIT2: I asked around on #ubuntu and got the answer to "use shutdown" or "halt -p"

I found a couple different questions on AskUbuntu as well, with different answers.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/73696...ay-to-shutdown
http://askubuntu.com/questions/11024...d-to-power-off

The man page doesn't help all that much either:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...n8/halt.8.html

[dmizer]

With what message does halt halt? Have you tried using the verbose switch to see comments?

I had a Dapper box ages ago with this problem and it had to do with how halt talked to the BIOS. Don't remember how I fixed it though.

[CharlesA]

It just says "system halted" like it did on Lucid except it doesn't power the box off. "halt -p", "poweroff", "shutdown -h now" all power the box off fine.

I updated the launchpad bug asking if this is intended or what, but no response as of yet.

Guess I'll just have to learn a new command as I've always use halt to power off an *nix machine. *shrugs*

EDIT: Filed a new bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rt/+bug/991997

[caraboy]

I have the same problem, "halt -p" seems to work though.

I don`t mind using this command, as long as the machine stops, but this should be written somewhere, as I lost all night trying to find an answer to why the system was not shutting down.