After sending shutdown command, ssh session doesn't terminate

Question

Whenever I send the command to turn off or restart my Debian servers, my shell is left hanging and unresponsive (can't type any commands).

Performing the same action in Ubuntu results in the session gracefully closing so I don't have a tied-up terminal left hanging there. Is there a package I need to install or a configuration change to be made so that I can get this same behaviour on Debian?

Answer 1

This worked for me:

apt-get install libpam-systemd dbus

Also make sure that you have UsePAM yes in your ssh config.

grep -i UsePAM /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Unfortunately, you need to reboot for the solution to take effect...

Detailed explanations on serverfault.

Answer 2

Looks like that's a systemd issue currently tracked under bug #751636.

When the host is shut down or restarted, systemd might shut down the network before it kills the ssh session.

There are a couple of solutions provided but nothing concrete:

1. Using acpid/acpi-support-base to handle the power events & add the following to the /etc/acpi/powerbtn-acpi-support.sh

   else
   -       # Normal handling.
   -       /sbin/shutdown -h -P now "Power button pressed"
   +
   +       if [ -x /bin/systemctl ] ; then
   +           echo "\nPower button pressed\nThe system is going down for system halt NOW!" |\
   +            /usr/bin/wall -n
   +           /bin/systemctl --force poweroff
   +       else
   +           # Normal handling.
   +           /sbin/shutdown -h -P now "Power button pressed"
   +       fi
   +
   fi
   

   and then make aliases in your ~/.bashrc:

   alias reboot='echo "The system is going down for system reboot NOW!" |\
   /usr/bin/wall -n ; /bin/systemctl --force reboot'
   
   alias poweroff='echo "The system is going down for system halt NOW!" |\
   /usr/bin/wall -n ; /bin/systemctl --force poweroff'
   

2. Creating /etc/systemd/system/ssh-user-sessions.service with the following in it:

   [Unit]
   Description=Shutdown all ssh sessions before network
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   TimeoutStartSec=0
   Type=oneshot
   RemainAfterExit=yes
   ExecStart=/bin/true
   ExecStop=/usr/bin/killall sshd