Linux: How can you distinguish between a crash and a reboot on RHEL7

(1) auditd logs

auditd is amazing. You can see all the different events that it logs by checking ausearch -m. Apropos to the problem at hand, it logs system shutdown and system boot, so you can use the command ausearch -i -m system_boot,system_shutdown | tail -4. If this reports a SYSTEM_SHUTDOWN followed by a SYSTEM_BOOT, all is well; however, if it reports 2 SYSTEM_BOOT lines in a row, then clearly the system did not shutdown gracefully, as in the following example:

[root@a72 ~]# ausearch -i -m system_boot,system_shutdown | tail -4
----
type=SYSTEM_BOOT msg=audit(09/20/2016 01:10:32.392:7) : pid=657 uid=root auid=unset ses=unset subj=system_u:system_r:init_t:s0 msg=' comm=systemd-update-utmp exe=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-update-utmp hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success' 
----
type=SYSTEM_BOOT msg=audit(09/20/2016 01:11:41.134:7) : pid=656 uid=root auid=unset ses=unset subj=system_u:system_r:init_t:s0 msg=' comm=systemd-update-utmp exe=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-update-utmp hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success' 

(2) last -x

Same as above, but with the simple last -n2 -x shutdown reboot command. Example where system crashed:

[root@a72 ~]# last -n2 -x shutdown reboot
reboot   system boot  3.10.0-327.el7.x Tue Sep 20 01:11 - 01:20  (00:08)    
reboot   system boot  3.10.0-327.el7.x Tue Sep 20 01:10 - 01:20  (00:09)    

Or where system had a graceful reboot:

[root@a72 ~]# last -n2 -x shutdown reboot
reboot   system boot  3.10.0-327.el7.x Tue Sep 20 01:21 - 01:21  (00:00)    
shutdown system down  3.10.0-327.el7.x Tue Sep 20 01:21 - 01:21  (00:00)    

(3) create your own service unit

This is IMHO the best approach because you can tailor it to whatever you want. There are a million ways to do this. Here's one I just made up. This next service only runs at shutdown.

[root@a72 ~]# cat /etc/systemd/system/set_gracefulshutdown.service
[Unit]
Description=Set flag for graceful shutdown
DefaultDependencies=no
RefuseManualStart=true
Before=shutdown.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/touch /root/graceful_shutdown

[Install]
WantedBy=shutdown.target
[root@a72 ~]# systemctl enable set_gracefulshutdown.service 
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/shutdown.target.wants/set_gracefulshutdown.service to /etc/systemd/system/set_gracefulshutdown.service.

Then when the system boots, this next service will only start if the file created by the above shutdown service exists.

[root@a72 ~]# cat /etc/systemd/system/check_graceful.service 
[Unit]
Description=Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown
ConditionPathExists=/root/graceful_shutdown
RefuseManualStart=true
RefuseManualStop=true

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=true
ExecStart=/bin/rm /root/graceful_shutdown

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
[root@a72 ~]# systemctl enable check_graceful
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/check_graceful.service to /etc/systemd/system/check_graceful.service.

So at any given time I can check if the previous boot was done after a graceful shutdown by doing systemctl is-active check_graceful, e.g.:

[root@a72 ~]# systemctl is-active check_graceful && echo YAY || echo OH NOES
active
YAY
[root@a72 ~]# systemctl status check_graceful
● check_graceful.service - Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/check_graceful.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Tue 2016-09-20 01:10:32 EDT; 20s ago
  Process: 669 ExecStart=/bin/rm /root/graceful_shutdown (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 669 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/check_graceful.service

Sep 20 01:10:32 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Starting Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown...
Sep 20 01:10:32 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Started Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown.

Or here's after an ungraceful shutdown:

[root@a72 ~]# systemctl is-active check_graceful && echo YAY || echo OH NOES
inactive
OH NOES
[root@a72 ~]# systemctl status check_graceful
● check_graceful.service - Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/check_graceful.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
Condition: start condition failed at Tue 2016-09-20 01:11:41 EDT; 16s ago
           ConditionPathExists=/root/graceful_shutdown was not met

Sep 20 01:11:41 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Started Check if system booted after a graceful shutdown.

(4) journalctl

It is worth mentioning that if you configure systemd-journald to keep a persistent journal, you can then use journalctl -b -1 -n to look at the last few (10 by default) lines of the previous boot (-b -2 is the boot before that, etc). Example where the system rebooted gracefully:

[root@a72 ~]# mkdir /var/log/journal
[root@a72 ~]# systemctl -s SIGUSR1 kill systemd-journald
[root@a72 ~]# reboot
...
[root@a72 ~]# journalctl -b -1 -n
-- Logs begin at Tue 2016-09-20 01:01:15 EDT, end at Tue 2016-09-20 01:21:33 EDT. --
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Stopped Create Static Device Nodes in /dev.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Stopping Create Static Device Nodes in /dev...
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Reached target Shutdown.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Starting Shutdown.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Reached target Final Step.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Starting Final Step.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Starting Reboot...
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd[1]: Shutting down.
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd-shutdown[1]: Sending SIGTERM to remaining processes...
Sep 20 01:21:19 a72.example.com systemd-journal[483]: Journal stopped

If you get good output like that, then clearly the system was shutdown gracefully. That said, it's not super-reliable in my experience when bad things happen (system crashes). Sometimes the indexing gets weird