No boot-time logs exists at this time in Hardy

[Bogdan Butnaru]

Binary package hint: ubuntu-minimal

In the current build of Hardy there is no kind of boot log, ie a log of all the messages shown during boot.

There are a couple of bugs in the (two, I think) packages that provide boot-log functionality that I'd like to link here (either would fix this) but I can't find right now. I hope someone in triage can help. However, this is a bug in the entire distribution, not a duplicate of those, because they are sufficient but not necessary; this one can be fixed by another temporary solution, for instance.

I think even a makeshift solution would do for now, even if it's mildly inconvenient or buggy. A boot-time parameter could enable/disable it.

I hesitate to mark this as a security vulnerability. It's not really a vulnerability in a package, but it's a (lacking) vital security tool: without a boot log it's very hard to notice error messages (and thus potential security issues) during the boot time.

It's also pretty hard to debug any start-up issues---if any of the developers can help with a note of how they manage to find out what's wrong with, eg, initrd scrips, please leave a note here.

I attached this to ubuntu-minimal, as I think this functionality is critical to a running system, but feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate.

(This is here since Gutsy, actually. I'd think it an important issue for a LTS release.)

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

One of the bugs I mentioned above is https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/98955
There's also a question on this subject: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/11985

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

bogdan, how is this bug different from the one that you yourself linked to?
https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/98955

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

Well, that one is a bug on upstart which says that logd isn't working. This one is a bug on Ubuntu that says we don't have a boot log.

I.e., solving bug #98955 is sufficient but not necessary for fixing this one. Which might be relevant if there is some easy hack that can be done until logd is fixed.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I don't know of any such easy hack that wouldn't cause other problems; we really would want to do it in upstart. With all due respect I don't think we need this separate bug, and so I'm marking it as a duplicate.

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

Well, neither do I *know* another quick solution (otherwise I'd have proposed it), which is sort of why I put this bug here: maybe someone will have an idea.

And even if an easy hack exists that might cause other problems, it would still be a good idea to make it available in Ubuntu, even if it's not enabled by default. Not having a boot log _is_ a problem in itself. Maybe not an essential one, but important enough. And even if I'd really like to have the proper solution, the fact still remains that there has been no working boot log in Ubuntu for at least two years, unless I'm very mistaken.

So if it takes another two years until Upstart gets it right, I'd very much like a working hack available in the meantime. Which is why I posted this bug.

That said, I understand your reasoning, and I don't think the bug is worth a lot of arguing about :-)

[Charles Atkinson (7-launchpad-catcons-co-uk)]

This bug report, started on 2006-11-01, has been marked as a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/upstart/+bug/328881, started on 2009-02-13.

I understood that later bugs were marked as duplicates of earlier bugs; that way the activity is kept in one place.