>Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:20:48 +0000 (GMT)
>From: Stephen Borrill <sborrill@xemplar.co.uk>

>If you halt or exec halt in a sh script, the machine kills all the
>processes except for the current login shell which remains functional
>(the script itself is terminated). The machine will shutdown eventually.
>This is obviously a bit confusing but not a problem. If you try to
>execute halt from a Apache script, then most of the processes die, but
>not all (inetd, nfsd, mountd,init, etc. are left). Any shells open
>continue to be usable. You then still need to type halt at an open shell
>to shut the machine down (Woe betide you if you don't have an open
>shell; all the getty processes have died so you can't log in and so you
>can't sync the discs).

Have you considered using shutdown(8) instead of halt or reboot?
-- 
Mike Long <mikel@shore.net>                http://www.shore.net/~mikel
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H.L. Mencken