Today I just learned that systemctl --force --force reboot is a command. We had a computer we remotely connected to which got permission errors and bus errors when we tried to reboot it normally. For some reason the mentioned command did actually manage to shutdown the computer bit did not manage to reboot it correctly.

I wonder what the double --force flag actually accomplishes and what possibly could hinder a regular reboot in this scenario.

    • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
      191·
      2 months ago

      You just really force it.

      It’s like with -v in various applications. -v means “verbose”, and -vv means “really verbose”, and -vvv means “an ungodly amount of data printed to the terminal, so much that it might crash”.

      • kungen@feddit.nu
        3·
        2 months ago

        But that’s all part of the same argument. If it was -f or -ff that’d make sense. Duplicate parameters are usually ignored in like all other programs I can think of.

        • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
          6·
          2 months ago

          The -vvv I know is the same as -v -v -v. Can’t check right now, but is the short parameter -f? So maybe give -ff a try …

        • huginn@feddit.it
          4·
          2 months ago

          It’s a dangerous command - I’d rather not run it by accidentally hitting the f key a second time.

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          2 months ago

          I agree. Specifying the same param twice like this feels like it should be idempotent. Sometimes a final cmdline string is built by multiple tools concatenating their outputs together; if each one adds --force without any way to know if it’s already been added elsewhere, this could lead to undesirable behavior.

          Even --forceforce would be better.