Active Scroll Lock key suspends shutdown

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

Situation

A shutdown or reboot command issued from a remote login does not get performed completely. The keyboard attached to the machine has Scroll Lock set. When turning off Scroll Lock, the shutdown process proceeds.

Resolution

It is recommended to not permanently attach a keyboard to a remotely administrated machine, pressing certain keys or key combinations may have the mentioned or other unwanted results.

Additional Information

Hitting the Scroll Lock key stops the output on the text or frame buffer console of a Linux system. The console is only capable to buffer further output up to a certain amount of characters and will stop the writing process afterwards to avoid loss of information. This is intended behavior, however may lead to the unwanted side effect that it affects the shutdown script as well. If a keyboard has to be connected to the machine all the time, the following workaround to disable the Scroll Lock key may help.

As user "root" run:

Create a file /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/include/compose.disablescrollock with the content
plain keycode 70 = VoidSymbol
Add 'disablescrollock' to COMPOSETABLE in /etc/sysconfig/keyboard, for example:
COMPOSETABLE="clear latin1.add disablescrollock"
Run "rckbd restart" to activate the change without rebooting the machine

Disclaimer

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