Ureadahead try to read missing log files, then Fail to read compressed log files

[dino99]

Precise i386 logged as gnome-classic

from /var/log/upstart/ i get :

ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/ureadahead-other.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/module-init-tools.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/procps-virtual-filesystems.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/console-setup.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/container-detect.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/rsyslog.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/statd.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/gssd.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/udev-fallback-graphics.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/cryptdisks-enable.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/cups.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/network-interface-eth0.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/hybrid-gfx.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/lib/pgl/.pglcmd.iptables.remove.sh: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.pulse/81a87d7c3e7524bcba4b9eff49d87ce0-runtime/pid: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.xinput.d/fr_FR: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/cups.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/network-interface-eth0.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/lib/pgl/.pglcmd.iptables.remove.sh: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.pulse/81a87d7c3e7524bcba4b9eff49d87ce0-runtime/pid: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.xinput.d/fr_FR: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/cups.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/log/upstart/network-interface-eth0.log: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/var/lib/pgl/.pglcmd.iptables.remove.sh: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.pulse/81a87d7c3e7524bcba4b9eff49d87ce0-runtime/pid: No such file or directory
ureadahead:/home/oem/.xinput.d/fr_FR: No such file or directory

So ureadahead is looking for somefile.log, but inside this upstart subdir all the logs are compressed as somefile.log.1.gz

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ureadahead 0.100.0-12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.4.0-1.2-generic-pae 3.4.0-rc5
Uname: Linux 3.4.0-1-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun May 13 10:19:41 2012
SourcePackage: ureadahead
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Gary M (garym)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 559525, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[dino99 (9d9)]

hi Gary, (if you are not a bot)

the report you marked have no relationship with this one at all.
Here ureadahead fail to do its job because it cant find simple log files (see all these : no such file or dir), of course they does not exist as such, as they are all compressed, and ureadahead does not use them.

In other words, either :
- these log files should not be compressed to satisfy ureadahead, or
- ureadahead need to be updated to be able to use these *.log.1.gz files, or
- be able to use them both.

Hope you understand the real issue now.

[Bryan Fullerton (fehwalker)]

To clarify, the function of ureadahead is to load files used by the boot process into memory (disk cache) before they are needed by the boot process. Specifically, it is used to increase the speed of reading files from the disk.

Log files in /var/log are not read from the disk during the boot process, they are only written to. So there is no value in caching them with ureadahead, and in fact there can be a very significant performance penalty if the logs are large.

Removing /var/log from ureadahead is the point of bug 559525, so it is a valid duplicate in this case.