shutdown console messages are lost

[canatella]

I have a backup script that is run automatically at shutdown. Sometimes it fails, but I cannot see why because usplash is shown on the screen.

Reading upstart README, these message should be logged in /var/log/boot. But there I can only read the boot message, not the shutdown ones. Maybe a /var/log/shutdown file should be created to log messages at shutdown.

I am using Edgy.

[Alex Smith (aejsmith)]

I don't know if it will work or not, but for me in Edgy, if I removed quiet from the kernel command line when you boot the system, it'll make the messages be displayed on screen.

[canatella (dam-cosinux)]

I suppose it will work, but nevertheless, those message should be saved somewhere. If I had a problem during last shutdown, maybe it won't appear during next one and I didn't had the opportunity to boot the system without the quiet option so the messages are lost.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

The reason they're not logged to /var/log/boot is simply that they'd be overwritten when you next booted, so you'd never see them

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

this is a veeeeeeeery old report, but wouldn't this kind of stuff be under /var/log/messages ?

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

Related see also bug #189916

[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.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 07:42 +0000, Charles Atkinson wrote:

> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 328881 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/328881
>
> 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.
>
You understood incorrectly.

From a developer's point of view, it makes the most sense to mark the
bugs as duplicates of the bug that most succinctly captures the
underlying problem.

In this case, the discussion about shutdown messages in particular is
distracting to the actual problem.

Scott
--
Scott James Remnant
<email address hidden>

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

Thank you Scott :)

"most succinctly" makes sense but cannatella's subject is "_shutdown_ console messages are lost" so I do not understand how this bug can be a duplicate of any bug report that is about _boot_ messages. I'm sorry if my persistence is annoying you but I'm striving for clarity.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Simple: they're both just symptoms of the real problem: broken logger.

[Casey Dahlin (cjdahlin)]

The bug is that "messages are lost." When those messages are displayed is (for the case of this particular problem) immaterial. Its all the same reporting mechanism, and its all broken for the same reason.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

And that should answer your question. If _you_don't_understand_,
perhaps you shouldn't repeatedly question those that do?

 From a system POV, boot and shutdown are exactly the same; just in
different directions.

The underlying problem is that we don't have a reliable system to
capture the output of job processes and redirect it elsewhere (e.g. to
a log)

I'm of the opinion that we want from-like functionality here, so that
errors from Apache are sent to the webmaster, etc.

That requires some implementation effort though.

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

AFAIK shutdown messages have never been logged so this bug report is an enhancement request unlike the others which are about lost functionality.