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CTRLALTDEL(8) System Administration CTRLALTDEL(8)

NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

ctrlaltdel hard|soft

DESCRIPTION

Based on examination of the linux/kernel/reboot.c code, it is clear that there are two supported functions that the <Ctrl-Alt-Del> sequence can perform.

hard

Immediately reboot the computer without calling sync(2) and without any other preparation. This is the default.

soft

Make the kernel send 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.

When the command is run without any argument, it will display the current setting.

The function of ctrlaltdel is usually set in the /etc/rc.local file.

OPTIONS

-h, --help

Display help text and exit.

-V, --version

Display version and exit.

FILES

/etc/rc.local

AUTHORS

Peter Orbaek <poe@daimi.aau.dk>

SEE ALSO

init(8), systemd(1)

REPORTING BUGS

For bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY

The ctrlaltdel command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

2025-09-22 util-linux 2.41.2