I had to shut down a bunch of Linux boxes tonight because we have an upcoming power outage for the whole building. I did not know any passwords for most of the boxes.
So, (on the Ubuntu desktop) I click the power button in the upper right and select "Shutdown". Nothing happens. Try again. Nothing happens.
Okay, then I proceeded to pull the plug on every machine.
Does Linux have some kind of "attitude" that you have to log in to shut down the machine, because a physical user can ALWAYS terminate the machine by unplugging the machine, so the idea of forcing somebody to login to shut the machine down seems kind of nuts to me. Windows machines can always be turned off from the login screen for this exact reason.
Is there anything I could have done differently to have shut down the machines in a controlled fashion not having the passwords?
(I am hoping when I come in to work tomorrow there isn't an ugly email from somebody complaining about lost work or non-functional boxes.)