Re: Should reboot(8) be modified so that it can become the recommended way to reboot a system?

Alexander Leidinger <[email protected]> Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:45:21 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.os.freebsd.architechture
Organization	No organization, this is a private message.
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Am 2025-02-10 18:04, schrieb Warner Losh:

> On Sun, Feb 9, 2025 at 10:00 AM Poul-Henning Kamp <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
>> --------
>> Daniel Tameling writes:
>> 
>>> Part of the problem is that reboot indeed reboots the system.
>> 
>> I understand what you are saying, but there's no way it can be a
>> "problem" that a command called "reboot" reboots the system :-)
>> 
>> If we dont want to make this a flag-day and break a lot of scripts,
>> and other automation, the only option, is to make reboot(8) and
>> halt(8) print a message and sleep long enough that people can
>> change their mind.
>> 
>> My suggestion would be:
>> 
>> If reboot(8) or halt(8) is invoked with any other argument than
>> '-p', they behave as documented today.
>> 
>> If they are invoked without arguments, or with only the '-p' argument,
>> it goes something like:
>> 
>> # reboot
>> 
>> If you want things to be stop nicely:
>> 
>> Press CTRL-C now, and use the shutdown(8) command instead.
>> 
>> 3
>> 2
>> 1
>> rebooting
>> 
>> That clearly communicates what the concern is, gives people a sensible
>> chance to change their mind, and does not break any existing scripts.
> 
> I have a contrary view. I think we should make some changes. But we 
> can't just exec shutdown, the args / history / evolution of reboot is 
> too complicated for that.

I have scripts which rely on "reboot" to not kill processes or run 
scripts. Those are some kind of "automatic repair for bugs which are not 
easily fixed" scripts (those temporary fixes which stay forever). I have 
no problem to change that, but I expect that a lot of the situations 
where reboot is used, it is because of the hard reboot without caring 
about processes and stop scripts. If you do not come up with something 
makes people aware very loudly about this change, it may cause grief.

Additionally I think there was a discussion about exactly the same topic 
in the past. Years ago. Maybe more than 10 years ago. There were similar 
concerns about POLA.

Bye,
Alexander.

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