[smtddr]

This happened to me once; I don't know if this works on all linux distros but if you quickly follow a halt/shutdown with a "sudo init 6"(reboot) before your ssh-session gets SIGTERMed/KILLed, the box comes back up. This at least worked on some Ubuntu version a few years back.

Give it a try on some system that's not critically important :)

[cordite]

Yeah, but the problem is when you honestly didn't realize calling a halting shutdown until the server doesn't come back 5 minutes later and then you review the terminal