<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Single user mode</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.63 "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="The Linux System Administrator's Guide" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Boots And Shutdowns" HREF="boots-and-shutdowns.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Rebooting" HREF="x1983.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Emergency boot floppies" HREF="x1996.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >The Linux System Administrator's Guide: Version 0.7</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x1983.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 8. Boots And Shutdowns</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x1996.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN1992" >8.5. Single user mode</A ></H1 ><P >The <B CLASS="COMMAND" >shutdown</B > command can also be used to bring the system down to single user mode, in which no one can log in, but root can use the console. This is useful for system administration tasks that can't be done while the system is running normally.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x1983.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x1996.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Rebooting</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="boots-and-shutdowns.html" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Emergency boot floppies</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >