Remote Shutdown of Raspberry Pi

Suggestions
1

Hi Everyone,

I would like to know if there is a way to remotely shut down a raspberry pi? I am aware that there is a power saver setup and all but it only puts the pi to sleep but not completely shuts it down as far as I’m concerned. Please help!

2

In theory that possible, but the API is not exposed at the moment, as that’s quite dangerous as someone has to manually power cycle the Pi once it’s halted. Out of curiousity: When is halting needed? The halt API call can probably be added.

3

I notice no further info was given on this suggestion. Just thought I would provide some info for our scenario as I think this would be handy or at least ability to schedule a shutdown.

Our digital signage TV’s and Pis are connected to our lighting circuit so that when our retail stores open/turn on the lights first thing in the morning the signage comes on. When they lock up and turn off the lights for the day, they turn off. Being able to schedule a shutdown would prevent the Pi from having its power cut. I understand that not everyone would have this kind of setup though. But it would definitely be a great option to have.

4

I understand the scenario, but info-beamer is explicitly built to handle sudden powerloss as it realistically cannot expect users to cleanly shut down every time anyway. So instead of hoping that an occasional power loss does not break anything, info-beamer is highly optimized to handle this case:

  • The complete OS is always read-only.
  • Even OS updates or configuration changes are (with the exception of a single write at the very end) read-only. So even if you cut power during a system update, the update will either be successful or not applied at all.
  • All assigned files are always checked for any bit error when a device restarts. In case of any corruption, it will redownload the file (from either the internet or other local info-beamer devices if you have peer-to-peer enabled). So it won’t happen that a corruption results in broken content that goes unnoticed.
  • Same for the OS. It is checked at every reboot and completely reinstalled in case of any bit error of its files.
  • If the file system on the data partition (the one where the OS stores assigned content) is completely corrupted beyond repair, the OS can completely reformat it and it will automatically redownload the assigned setup (again from the internet or other info-beamer devices).

All that happens fully automatic. To summarize: It’s not needed to cleanly shut down your Pi. You don’t need to build your own automation around this as the device handle this perfectly fine.

4 Likes
5

That is great! Thank you for the detailed information. Much appreciated