Power down no longer works

[tony j. podrasky]

Issuing an init 0 was powering down the system. I moved the /usr directory to
a separate partition. Now when I issue an
init 0 the system comes all the way down
but never powers off the box.
The halt command is in /sbin, which is still
resident on the root disk so I don't know
where the problem is.

Any ideas?

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Yes, have you recently moved the modules???

Anyway, when you compile the Kernel, you need to load in Advance Power Management Support (APM). Also at the end of the list, you need to add 'Use real mode APM Bios call to power off'.

I generally do not use modules, I fell more comfortable with compiled modules.

Hope that helps.

[Tim Malnati]

My best guess is that the shutdown sequence is attempting to process a command in /usr after the /usr file system has been unmounted and erroring out. The default init $PATH is /usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin so it's possible that a command is failing when attempting to traverse this path set or that the halt command is attempting to use the path itself. There is also a possibility that /etc/inittab has been modified on your system. I did a quick look at /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt but could not see anything in the script that's obvious. Another place to look is the /etc/rc.d/rc.local script.

The standard way to shutdown the machine is with the shutdown command instaed of directly invoking init. I would also try 'shutdown -h now' to see if things happen any differently. Not a clear cut answer, but some places to look.