How to check the last time system was rebooted on Linux

Last updated on July 17, 2020 by Dan Nanni

There are several ways to find out the last system reboot time.

Method One: last

The first method is to use last command.

$ last reboot

This command actually shows system uptime for the last few days. Originally the last command is designed to show login history of a particular user. In Linux, a special "pseudo user" named reboot automatically logs in to the system right after the system has rebooted. Thus by checking the login history of reboot user, you can check the last reboot time.

Method Two: who

Another command to check the time of last system boot is to use who command with -b option.

$ who -b

Method Three: uptime

You can also use uptime command to deduce last reboot time. The uptime command shows you the current time, as well as how long the system has been running. From this information, you can calculate the time when the system was last booted.

$ uptime

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