On Tuesday 06 Aug 2013 10:09:33 Fons Adriaensen wrote: > On the remote machines I have /etc/systemd/system/poweroff.timer > > ---- > [Unit] > Description=Delayed poweroff > > [Timer] > OnActiveSec=5 > Unit=poweroff.target > ---- > > and the script does > > ssh -t remote1 "sudo systemctl start poweroff.timer" Have you tried something like: ssh -t remote1 "sudo systemctl poweroff && exit" Technically I guess it's a race condition, but the command should terminate and close the SSH session before OpenSSH is shut down, so you shouldn't get the hang. Alternatively, you could try "systemctl start poweroff.target" to see if that returns quicker. I'm not sure if the poweroff command returns straight away or waits. Basically, I'm thinking that if you can get the first command to return quickly, your shell will close nicely before the shutdown kills the connection. Paul