[systemd-devel] Q: shutdown messages and the lack of such

[Dave Howorth]

On Thu, 8 Oct 2020 16:44:28 +0100
Dave Howorth <systemd at howorth.org.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 08 Oct 2020 14:29:24 +0000
> fox <firefox at firemail.cc> wrote:
> > > I wonder: Shouldn't here be an infiormational message at least
> > > when the shutdown command is entered, and at least a notice
> > > message when the actual shutdown time has arrived?
> > > If you review syslog laternot at all obvious what had
> > > happened.    
> > 
> > 
> >         shutdown [OPTIONS...] [TIME] [WALL...]
> > 
> > Note that to specify a wall message you must specify a time
> > argument, too.
> > --no-wall #  Do not send wall message before halt, power-off,
> > reboot.
> > 
> > so, "shutdown now" # has an implicit   --no-wall
> > 
> > seems it acts according to specs.  
> 
> I think Ulrich's point was that the docs for previous versions of
> shutdown were consistent with its behaviour, which was to send a wall
> message and you could customise the message by supplying a command
> line argument.
> 
> It appears that the systemctl implementation has changed the
> behaviour, and the documentation. Whether there is a spec anywhere
> (POSIX or whatever) I do not know - but certainly a man page is not a
> spec. Nor do I know whether this was a deliberate and publically
> agreed change in behaviour or something else.

Just to add that a quick bit of searching has found only
https://refspecs.linuxbase.org/LSB_3.0.0/LSB-PDA/LSB-PDA/shutdown.html
as a possible spec and it says the old way is correct and systemd's is
wrong.