Hi as you know, the boot message which I think is both bios messages and linux messages scroll quite quickly.

I know that you can get quite a bit of info from dmesg.

Is there a way to log the entire message in one log or be able to slow the boot message?
Your help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
okos

Not sure why anyone would want to slow the boot up process, most want to speed it up.

Read this, I believe you can find your answer here:

http://www.linfo.org/dmesg.html

Very bottom:

Thanks for the info but the dmesg does not print the entire boot message.
That is what Im after.

Im not looking for a slower boot except to scan for specific issues.

dmesg does log the entire boot once the kernel is selected from either lilo or grub.

From the link I previously posted:

Invoking dmesg without any of its options (which are rarely used) causes it to write all the kernel messages to standard output. This usually produces far too many lines to fit into the display screen all at once, and thus only the final messages are visible.

Maybe your not posing the question the way you are thinking it?

Well, dmesg will only log the kernel messages. All the output of the programs and scripts that run during startup are not logged.
What you can do (as long as boot in console mode - runlevel 3) is wait until the command prompt appears, and then use <Shift> <PgUp> to inspect the text that had already scrolled off the console screen.

Eric

As usual, Bob is right.............

Simply press the Scroll-Lock-Key while booting and everything halts until you press it again. It's as simple as this.

1 members found this post helpful.

Both Bob and Rupa are correct and just highlight the fundamental problem that if one does not intervene manually either during the boot and initialisation processes or at least before starting any other activity, the complete information on what has occurred from boot during the initiation processes up until the log-in prompt has been lost.

In short: there is a serious audit weakness - no permanent record of what has occurred is made.

All events that occur on the system from boot upto the login prompt should be logged to a file - the question is: how to do this?

What you ask for is near impossible. There is a time in the beginning of the boot where there is no medium mounted where the logs can be written to.


Eric

bootlogd(8) is what you're after, I believe.

Hi
First of all thanks for all of the responses.

I read the man page. I tried the following command:
And I got the following error.
According to the man page:
Im sorry but I am not sure how to get it to work.

There is /dev/console on my slackware system. I guess that is where all of the boot messages are printed at boot.

Adding bootlogd -l /var/log/boot to the beginning of the rc3.d would not help would it?

Thanks for the help.

.

WARNING: I'm a Linux greenhorn. If you follow my advice you better have your seatbelt fastened, tray locked in the upright position, and barf bag in hand.

I'm guessing that you tried the command from an xterm. I believe you have to use a real console.


rc3.d is a directory. If you mean rc.M, I'd say not. You'd want it logging messages way before that, e.g., rc.S prints a number of useful messages. It defaults to /var/log/boot so you shouldn't need the -l flag. My guess would be to add it at the top of inittab something like this:?

bl::sysinit:/sbin/bootlogd

I'D WAIT FOR SOMEONE THAT ACTUALLY HAS A CLUE TO GIVE A THUMBS-UP OR THUMBS-DOWN ON THAT BEFORE TRYING IT.

Add that bootlogd line to the top of /etc/rc.d/rc.S (right below the comment block).

I read that bootlogd is a security risk because it will continue to log all activity on
the boot console including login information.

Perhaps adding it to rc.S this way so it can be activated only when needed by [un]setting it's exe bit?

if [ -x /sbin/bootlogd ]; then
/sbin/bootlogd
fi

Considering that you don't really want bootlogd running after boot completes, it
seems like the correct way would be to have the login prompt kill bootlogd.
I don't know how or where one would do that though.

Interesting; I don't ever recall noticing any login info in the file it creates, but there's a fair chance I didn't look far enough - I was always wanting something from *early* in the boot process.

If that's actually a problem (and perhaps even if it isn't), the best way to handle it would probably be a 'killall bootlogd' as the last line in /etc/rc.d/rc.local

-RW