CTRLALTDEL

Section: System Administration (8)
Updated: August 2011
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

ctrlaltdel - set the function of the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination

SYNOPSIS

ctrlaltdel hard|soft

DESCRIPTION

Based on examination of the linux/kernel/sys.c code, it is clear that there are two supported functions that the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence can perform: a hard reset, which immediately reboots the computer without calling sync(2) and without any other preparation; and a soft reset, which sends the SIGINT (interrupt) signal to the init process (this is always the process with PID 1). If this option is used, the init(8) program must support this feature. Since there are now several init(8) programs in the Linux community, please consult the documentation for the version that you are currently using.

ctrlaltdel is usually used in the /etc/rc.local file.

OPTIONS

-V, --version: Display version information and exit.
-h, --help: Display help text and exit.

FILES

/etc/rc.local

AUTHOR

Peter Orbaek

AVAILABILITY

The ctrlaltdel command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive