Tip: Shutdown commands in Linux and Windows

Have you ever been working in a command-line interface wondering how to shutdown or restart? This is not so much a problem per se as it is a list of shutdown/restart commands which may come in handy one day.

Linux/Ubuntu
To shutdown and completely power off right now, you can type at the prompt:

sudo shutdown -h now    OR   sudo shutdown -h 0

To reboot, type at the prompt:

sudo reboot   OR   sudo shutdown -r 0

(Note that the second command means to shutdown and then restart in zero seconds.  The -r flag means to restart.)

Windows
(This came in handy one day when a Windows computer I was trying to revive was so messed up I could only access the command line and not even the safe mode.)

Just type at the command prompt:

shutdown -s   OR  shutdown -s -t 0

In the above examples, the -s flag means to shut down the computer while the -t flag gives the time before shutting down (in the second case, in zero seconds).

Drupal 7 keeps asking for FTP login when trying to install modules/themes using the web interface

After changing ownership of a Drupal installation to the SFTP user using the folder, Drupal started to show peculiar behaviour. Whenever I tried to install any module or theme through the web interface, Drupal 7 would ask for the FTP login credentials. Although making changes through SFTP is okay, sometimes the web interface is much more convenient.

Problem: Drupal 7 would not allow installation through the web interface without needing the user to type in the FTP login.

Impact: Inconvenience.