OpenSolaris doesn't have a restart button anywhere in the menu system. It never had one, and so doesn't the newest version, OpenSolaris 2008.05. But have no fear, there have been plenty of hacks and methods to get you rebooting with a single click. For a few days, lately, I was forced to open the terminal, then become root by running su, and then I would run the reboot command. That was quite a laborious task. But now it's time to get a lil smarter with things. There are various ways to do this..

• Creating an expect script: This is the first thing that came to my mind. I've created an expect script which first opens up another shell process, makes you root, enters the password (which is the reason why we're using expect of all shell scripting languages in the first place), and the runs the reboot command:
  

  #!/opt/csw/bin/expect
   
  # Program to reboot the system on a system requiring root privelledges to do so
  
  spawn sh
  
  expect "$ "
  
  send "su\r"
  
  expect "Password: "
  
  send "mypassisnotthissimple\r"
  
  expect "# "
  
  send -- "\r"
  
  send "reboot\r"
  

  You can easily create a launcher for this or add it to the main menu (System > Preferences > Main Menu)
• Create a launcher to "init 6":
• Install "sudo" from blastwave, if you already don't have it:
  
  /opt/csw/bin/pkg-get install sudo
  
  Make sure your system has pkg-get installed. Get it from here.
• Create a launcher or add this command to the system menu. (which I guess is a trivial task):
  
  /opt/csw/bin/sudo /usr/bin/init 6
• There is rather trickier method which shows the shutdown/restart buttons on the login screen itself:
• Add the following lines to /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf:
  
  

  SystemMenu=true
  RebootCommand=/usr/sbin/reboot
  HaltCommand=/usr/sbin/shutdown -i5 -g0 -y

• On OpenSolaris Nevada Build 75+ and OpenSolaris 2008.05, GDM will not show the above created shutdown/reboot options on the login screen unless the gdm user is given RBAC (Role Based Access Control) authority to solaris.system.shutdown, and each user for which the shutdown/reboot buttons are needed, needs to have the GDM options for them enabled. For adding RBAC support to just your own user, just etc /etc/user_attr file and add auths=solaris.system.shutdown for your user. If you want to enable those actions for all user on the login screen, the just add this line to /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf in the "[daemon]" section:
  
  RBACSystemCommandKeys=

Well that wraps it up from my side. If you have any other creative ideas for rebooting OpenSolaris, add them to the comments section :)

The big question is, though, that why doesn't OpenSolaris have a restart button anywhere in it's GUI, and why are we required to be root to do so. Well, the former is explained saying that Solaris isn't meant to be rebooted at all. It's not required, in fact. Once up and ready, your system can be up for years. Reliability is one factor why Solaris fans never reboot their comp and that is probably why it doesn't have a button to do that. Servers are just rebooted for hardware or software upgrades, or when the battery needs to be changed, etc. The latter is due to obvious security reasons.

As far as I'm concerned, I need a reboot too now.. :)

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