Why does it take so long to reboot my Linode and why does it restart on its own when I shutdown?

You will want to use the Linode Manager or the Cloud Manager to change the power state of your Linode.

When you issue a shutdown -r command, you tell the Linode's hypervisor to terminate the process running your Linode. It has no notion that a reboot is supposed to take place. Likewise if your issue a shutdown -h command the hypervisor is also told to terminate the process running your Linode.

If you have the Shutdown Watchdog (Lassie) enabled in your settings, it will periodically check to see if your Linode is running, and will restart it if it is not. The time it takes Lassie to detect that your Linode is no longer running and to start it up again is the reason why your "reboot" seems to be taking so long.

For more information:

• https://blog.linode.com/2007/10/26/lassie-the-shutdown-watchdog/

@hphillips - any idea how to speed up the reboot time though? Once it gets to the kernel, then the boot is super quick, but the states before loading initramfs take a while (which I suppose is normal for a VPS). Just wanted to ask if there was a way to reduce the reboot time - especially because rebooting is required after updating a kernel (and that would decrease downtime).

@DT_DM Some questions:

• What distribution are you running?
• What boot method are you using?
  • Linode Supplied Kernel
  • Legacy GRUB,
  • GRUB 2 or
  • Direct Disk
• How long is the reboot taking?

I'd suggest creating another test Linode similar to the one you would like to optimize so you don't have to reboot your production system while testing.

For more details about boot options:

• https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/managing-the-kernel-on-a-linode/

Booting using the latest Linode Supplied kernel will skip the whole GRUB part of the boot process and I expect will be the fastest.

If you are booting using GRUB 2, you could edit /etc/default/grub and reduce GRUB_TIMEOUT. (Make sure you run update-grub afterword to apply the configuration changes.)

• Warning This may make it difficult to get at the GRUB Menu if you need it. (I believe you need to hold down ESC during boot.)

The first reboot after creating a new Linode or making changes to the boot process may take longer than subsequent reboots, so you might want to try rebooting a few times and observing the differences while connected to the LISH Console via SSH.

• SELinux relabeling may contribute to a longer boot time.