reboot(2) - NetBSD Manual Pages

REBOOT(2)                 NetBSD Programmer's Manual                 REBOOT(2)


NAME

     reboot - reboot system or halt processor


LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)


SYNOPSIS

     #include <unistd.h>
     #include <sys/reboot.h>

     int
     reboot(int howto, char *bootstr);


DESCRIPTION

     reboot() reboots the system.  Only the super-user may reboot a machine on
     demand.  However, a reboot is invoked automatically in the event of unre-
     coverable system failures.

     howto is a mask of options; the system call interface allows the follow-
     ing options, defined in the include file <sys/reboot.h>, to be passed to
     the new kernel or the new bootstrap and init programs.

     RB_AUTOBOOT   The default, causing the system to reboot in its usual
                   fashion.

     RB_ASKNAME    Interpreted by the bootstrap program itself, causing it to
                   prompt on the console as to what file should be booted.
                   Normally, the system is booted from the file
                   ``xx(0,0)netbsd'', where xx is the default disk name, with-
                   out prompting for the file name.

     RB_DFLTROOT   Use the compiled in root device.  Normally, the system uses
                   the device from which it was booted as the root device if
                   possible.  (The default behavior is dependent on the abili-
                   ty of the bootstrap program to determine the drive from
                   which it was loaded, which is not possible on all systems.)

     RB_DUMP       Dump kernel memory before rebooting; see savecore(8) for
                   more information.

     RB_HALT       the processor is simply halted; no reboot takes place.
                   This option should be used with caution.

     RB_INITNAME   An option allowing the specification of an init program
                   (see init(8)) other than /sbin/init to be run when the sys-
                   tem reboots.  This switch is not currently available.

     RB_KDB        Load the symbol table and enable a built-in debugger in the
                   system.  This option will have no useful function if the
                   kernel is not configured for debugging.  Several other op-
                   tions have different meaning if combined with this option,
                   although their use may not be possible via the reboot()
                   call.  See ddb(4) for more information.

     RB_NOSYNC     Normally, the disks are sync'd (see sync(8)) before the
                   processor is halted or rebooted.  This option may be useful
                   if file system changes have been made manually or if the
                   processor is on fire.

     RB_RDONLY     Initially mount the root file system read-only.  This is
                   currently the default, and this option has been deprecated.

     RB_SINGLE     Normally, the reboot procedure involves an automatic disk
                   consistency check and then multi-user operations.
                   RB_SINGLE prevents this, booting the system with a single-
                   user shell on the console.  RB_SINGLE is actually inter-
                   preted by the init(8) program in the newly booted system.

                   When no options are given (i.e., RB_AUTOBOOT is used), the
                   system is rebooted from file ``netbsd'' in the root file
                   system of unit 0 of a disk chosen in a processor specific
                   way.  An automatic consistency check of the disks is nor-
                   mally performed (see fsck(8)).

     RB_STRING     bootstr is a string passed to the firmware on the machine,
                   if possible, if this option is set.  Currently this only
                   implemented on the sparc and the sun3.


RETURN VALUES

     If successful, this call never returns.  Otherwise, a -1 is returned and
     an error is returned in the global variable errno.


ERRORS

     [EPERM]       The caller is not the super-user.


SEE ALSO

     ddb(4), crash(8), halt(8), init(8), reboot(8), savecore(8)


HISTORY

     The reboot() function call appeared in 4.0BSD.

NetBSD 1.6                       June 4, 1993                                2