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REBOOT(2) FreeBSD System Calls Manual REBOOT(2)
NAME
reboot - reboot system or halt processor
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/reboot.h>
int
reboot(int howto);
DESCRIPTION
The reboot() system call reboots the system. Only the super-user may
reboot a machine on demand. However, a reboot is invoked automatically
in the event of unrecoverable system failures.
The howto argument is a mask of options; the system call interface allows
the following options, defined in the include file <sys/reboot.h>, to be
passed to the new kernel or the new bootstrap and init programs.
RB_AUTOBOOT The default, causing the system to reboot in its usual
fashion.
RB_ASKNAME Normally the system only prompts the user if the loader
specified root file system has an error. This flag forces
it to always prompt the user for the root partition.
RB_DFLTROOT Use the compiled in root device. Normally, the system
uses the device from which it was booted as the root
device if possible. (The default behavior is dependent on
the ability of the bootstrap program to determine the
drive from which it was loaded, which is not possible on
all systems.)
RB_DUMP Dump kernel memory before rebooting; see savecore(8) for
more information.
RB_HALT The processor is simply halted; no reboot takes place.
This option should be used with caution.
RB_POWERCYCLE After halting, the shutdown code will do what it can to
turn off the power and then turn the power back on. This
requires hardware support, usually an auxiliary
microprocessor that can sequence the power supply. At
present only the ipmi(4) driver implements this feature.
RB_POWEROFF After halting, the shutdown code will do what it can to
turn off the power. This requires hardware support.
RB_KDB Load the symbol table and enable a built-in debugger in
the system. This option will have no useful function if
the kernel is not configured for debugging. Several other
options have different meaning if combined with this
option, although their use may not be possible via the
reboot() system call. See ddb(4) for more information.
one containing currently-running executable, and mount
root filesystem using the same mechanism which is used
during normal boot, based on vfs.root.mountfrom kenv(1)
variable.
RB_RDONLY Initially mount the root file system read-only. This is
currently the default, and this option has been
deprecated.
RB_SINGLE Normally, the reboot procedure involves an automatic disk
consistency check and then multi-user operations.
RB_SINGLE prevents this, booting the system with a single-
user shell on the console. RB_SINGLE is actually
interpreted by the init(8) program in the newly booted
system.
When no options are given (i.e., RB_AUTOBOOT is used), the system is
rebooted from file "kernel" in the root file system of unit 0 of a disk
chosen in a processor specific way. An automatic consistency check of
the disks is normally performed (see fsck(8)).
RETURN VALUES
If successful, this call never returns. Otherwise, a -1 is returned and
an error is returned in the global variable errno.
ERRORS
[EPERM] The caller is not the super-user.
SEE ALSO
crash(8), halt(8), init(8), reboot(8), savecore(8), reboot(9)
HISTORY
The reboot() system call appeared in 4.0BSD.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 July 10, 2018 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11