Shut Down or Reboot a Solaris System
Solaris is usually used as a server operating system. Because of this, you want to make sure that you shut the system down as gracefully as possible to ensure there isn't any data loss.
For every application that is installed on your server, you should make sure that you have the correct scripts in /etc/rc(x).d to gracefully shut down the service.
Shutdown
You have more than one command option that you can use. The best command is this, executed as root:
shutdown -y -i5 -g0
This will immediately shut the system down. You can also use the older command that still works:
sync;sync;init 5
You can even use:
poweroff
Reboot
If you are trying to reboot the system as opposed to turning it off, you could use:
shutdown -y -i6 -g0
Or:
sync;sync;init 6
Or even:
reboot
So many commands to do the same thing… almost seems silly.


There are differences between shutdown, reboot, init 6.
Shutdown will issue a warning, and can be deferred.
init 6 calls application shutdown scripts. reboot does not.
Thanks for the tip… I had read somewhere that reboot calls the shutdown scripts, but I guess that was incorrect.
Does any one know how to get the shutdown/hibernate options to appear on the logoff screen for my version: developers solaris 10?
I just want to use it on my home PC as a desktop OS.
The sync's you've added before init are totally superflous.
"poweroff" only exists on the big SunFire systems.
avoir poweroff and reboot : as they don't call the /etc/…. scripts they should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
prefer "init _number_" (works on old and new versions) for solaris.
(note: on linux, prefer "telinit _number_" to go in that mode (ex: telinit 1 to go into single user mode)