# shutdown



## balanga (Feb 14, 2017)

I read somewhere that `shutdown` without any parameter takes you into single user mode. When I try it, I get a usage msg with a list of  parameters....

This is on 11.0-RELEASE-p1 i386.


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## SirDice (Feb 14, 2017)

balanga said:


> I read somewhere that  shutdown without any parameter takes you into single user mode.




```
When run without options, the shutdown utility will place the system into
     single user mode at the time specified.
```
It says without options, not without parameters. Subtle difference.

Without options: `shutdown now`
Without parameters: `shutdown`


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## balanga (Feb 15, 2017)

SirDice said:


> ```
> When run without options, the shutdown utility will place the system into
> single user mode at the time specified.
> ```
> ...


I'm not sure I understand the subtle difference but anyhow I thought that just running `shutdown` without anything else (options or parameters) would place the system in single user mode....


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## SirDice (Feb 15, 2017)

In this case a parameter is a time (or the 'now' keyword), options are -h, -p, -r etc. 

The easiest way to switch to single user mode is using init(8): `init 1`


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