boot disk shut down
 

What files and configurations do I need to initiate a proper system shutdown from a boot disk? When I try to shutdown, I get the message 'You don't exist. Go Away'.
How do I fix this?

What distro are you using?

If you used a boot to boot you system after install,
then login as root and shutdown -h now
or
shutdown -r now to reboot

I'm using Redhat 7.1

My installation is fine. It's just that I'm trying to create a boot disk but I'm not configuring the shutdown part right.

Boot disks are (from my understanding anyway) a way to boot your computer, not to shut it down. That's a pretty funny message though, good thing you aren't suicidal. huh huh

How are you trying to shutdown? Who are you trying to shutdown with? Just like pickledbeans said:

give a "halt" or a "shutdown -h now" or "restart" or "init 6" or "shutdown -r now" or "reboot"

All as root

Do you mean a disk to boot your system with or a rescue disk?

There should be a script called mkbootdisk or something
like that? You could also create a lilo boot disk.

As MasterC suggested , the purpose of a boot is bring
the systems up to production mode which generaly means
run level 3 (init 3) also called multi-user mode.

And long the why bring up the network, start services
and mount filesytems. End with a loginin prompt:

Fron there you can log in and shutdown the system down.

Actually liloconfig is used to create a lilo boot disk,
mkbootdisk is used to create a regular boot disk

I'm creating a rescue disk. But I want to cleanup and shutdown nicely just as I would from a regular system.
If someone can tell me the config files that shutdown accesses that would be great.