Which log will tell me why my computer shut down?
Solution 1:
It is unusual for a kernel error to shutdown the power, it would either hang with a kernel panic or reboot. It was most likely an hardware issue.
If there was a kernel panic search for "kernel panic" on the logs dir:
grep -r "kernel panic" /var/log
Solution 2:
The relevant files in /var/log
are messages, dmesg
issue, command last
to see the exact reboot time.
You will see a line starting with reboot
(or may be shutdown
) for all reboot/crash.cat /var/log/messages
from a terminal and check for messages at the time stamp of reboot or just before it.
dmesg
can give the last boot time messages.
Hope this helps.