| Runlevel | Debian | Red Hat |
| 0 | Shutdown | |
| 1 | Single user / maintenance mode | |
| 2 | Multi-user mode (default) | Multi-user mode without network |
| 3 | Multi-user mode | Multi-user mode with network |
| 4 | Multi-user mode | Unused, for custom use |
| 5 | Multi-user mode | Multi-user mode with network and X(default) |
| 6 | Reboot | |
| S | Single user / maintenance mode (usually accessed through runlevel 1) | |
The default runlevels are 2 3 4 5
| who -r
runlevel |
Display the previous and the current runlevel |
| telinit runlevel
init runlevel init 0 telinit 0 |
Change runlevel |
| shutdown -h now
halt poweroff init 6 telinit 6 |
Halt the system |
| shutdown -r now
reboot |
Reboot the system |
| shutdown | Shut down the system in a secure way: all logged in users are notified via a message to their terminal, and login is disabled.
This command can be run only by the root user and by those users (if any) listed in /etc/shutdown.allow |
| shutdown -h 16:00 message | Schedule a shutdown for 4 PM and send a warning message to all logged in users |
| shutdown -a | Non-root users that are listed in /etc/shutdown.allow can use this command to shut down the system |
| shutdown -f | Skip fsck on reboot |
| shutdown -F | Force fsck on reboot |
| shutdown -c | Cancel an already running shutdown |
