I'm having all kinds of fun these days with Unraid.

Locked myself out of the GUI due to a bad wireless keyboard. I found the info on how to reset the root password but it says to shutdown the server to edit the shadows file.

Since I couldn't get to the GUI to initiate the shutdown, I SSH'd into the server. Kinda surprised that worked.

When I entered powerdown, it said the command has been deprecated.

So I did a shutdown and it shut down pretty quickly. I was running a parity check at the time.

Did the shutdown command shut the server down gracefully? If the powerdown command is deprecated, what do I use instead?

As long as I'm asking, how do I also stop a parity check via CLI? I see there's a pause and resume, but no stop with the "/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/parity_control" command.

32 minutes ago, nraygun said:

If the powerdown command is deprecated, what do I use instead?

As long as I'm asking, how do I also stop a parity check via CLI?

poweroff

You *should* be able to cancel with mdcmd nocheck

3 hours ago, nraygun said:

I'm having all kinds of fun these days with Unraid.

Locked myself out of the GUI due to a bad wireless keyboard. I found the info on how to reset the root password but it says to shutdown the server to edit the shadows file.

Since I couldn't get to the GUI to initiate the shutdown, I SSH'd into the server. Kinda surprised that worked.

When I entered powerdown, it said the command has been deprecated.

So I did a shutdown and it shut down pretty quickly. I was running a parity check at the time.

Did the shutdown command shut the server down gracefully? If the powerdown command is deprecated, what do I use instead?

As long as I'm asking, how do I also stop a parity check via CLI? I see there's a pause and resume, but no stop with the "/usr/local/emhttp/webGui/scripts/parity_control" command.

It's deprecated over semantics. It simply calls the command that isn't deprecated.

You can always use the 'shutdown' command as an alternative to 'powerdown'

4 hours ago, itimpi said:

You can always use the 'shutdown' command as an alternative to 'powerdown'

That's what I did but it shutdown pretty fast. Just worried the rug got pulled out from under it.

Does "shutdown" perform a graceful shutdown? Stop containers, stop parity check if running, and such.

14 hours ago, Squid said:

It's deprecated over semantics. It simply calls the command that isn't deprecated.

And what is the command? shutdown?

4 minutes ago, nraygun said:

And what is the command? shutdown?

Depends on what you want to do 😊

shutdown —help

to see options

shutdown -h now

to do equivalent to ‘powerdown’ command

shutdown -r now

to do equivalent of ‘reboot’ command

I remember when powerdown was originally going to be removed from the OS and complained (it remained in lol). Muscle memory dictates that I always

Reboot:

powerdown -r

Shutdown:

powerdown

Why do we still not have a clear answer on CLI shutdown/powerdown/poweroff? This was handled poorly. The docs - https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/system-administration/advanced-tools/command-line-interface/
still say to use powerdown, but running it yields
'powerdown: /usr/local/sbin/powerdown has been deprecated'

Which is excellent messaging since it doesn't tell you what to run instead, only that it no longer works, so sorry.

poweroff is a standard linux command. Does using it SAFELY shut down the array, stop dockers and VMs and such before powering off?

Not sure that powerdown is a standard Linux command?

What I have seen always exists is the 'shutdown' command, and you can use

shutdown -h now

to power down any Linux system including Unraid.

I see where @Torvald Utne is coming from since I never got a clear answer in my original question either.

In Unraid, does "shutdown" perform a safe, graceful shutdown of Unraid?

5/21/2025 asked by me, "Does "shutdown" perform a graceful shutdown? Stop containers, stop parity check if running, and such."

1/24/2026 asked by @Torvald Utne , "poweroff is a standard linux command. Does using it SAFELY shut down the array, stop dockers and VMs and such before powering off?"

Both ‘powerdown’ and ‘shutdown’ commands stop the docker and VM services and stop the array. Each of these have their own timeout setting for those whose requires more time for that step.

13 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Each of these have their own timeout setting for those whose requires more time for that step.

And if those timeouts expire it will shutdown regardless, so not necessarily "clean".

1 hour ago, itimpi said:

Both ‘powerdown’ and ‘shutdown’ commands stop the docker and VM services and stop the array. Each of these have their own timeout setting for those whose requires more time for that step.

Gotcha. Thanks!

"Sticky" thread pinned near the top of this same General Support subforum:

On 1/25/2026 at 11:33 AM, itimpi said:

Both ‘powerdown’ and ‘shutdown’ commands stop the docker and VM services and stop the array. Each of these have their own timeout setting for those whose requires more time for that step.

Ok, again, I'm a little confused and I'd really like some clear documentation on this to clarify.

Powerdown was an unraid specific command that is now deprecated and does not work on the current version.

'shutdown -h now' is a standard linux command and I can't find any proof that this stops the array and services cleanly.

Poweroff (as I understand it), called without arguments, just calls 'shutdown -h now'

It does. Unraid was changed some time ago to handle ‘shutdown’ correctly which is why ‘powerdown’ became deprecated. You can always try to confirm to yourself that this is the case.

To be clear, 'poweroff' will not perform a clean shutdown