This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
Subject: Re: Is the Linux boot sequence logged? From: Ramon Gandia <rfg@nook.net> Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 08:46:50 -0900 > Mark Knipfer wrote: > > > Bret Hughes wrote: > > > > > > /var/log/messages is the normal system log I believe. At > > > least its the one I always look at. Mark Knipfer wrote: > > I have viewed the /var/log/messages file with no success. I do > > not see any error messages that were appearing on the screen > > during the linux boot on the eth0 device. > > > > Are the network errors logged in another file, possibly in > > a different directory? I have written countless times about this.... the messages are on the screen only until the screen clears at the first LOGIN: prompt. Once you see the login: prompt, that's it. they are gone. They DO NOT go into any file, they cannot be scrolled back and viewed with <shift><pg up>. HOWEVER, there is a way to prevent the screen from clearing, and then you can scroll back and view the messages; indeed everything that was on screen. Note that you cannot scroll back forever and at some point you cannot scroll back enough. However, you certainly can go back a dozen screenfulls, enough to view all bootup messages. Edit /etc/inittab and amend the following line for the first virtual console which is the one with the boot messages. # Run gettys in standard runlevels 1:12345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1 The --noclear option is what you want. Next time you boot, scroll back at your leisure with <shift><page up>. There is a security issue here. If you start messing with passwords and the like, someone could come back later after you log off and scroll back and see what you typed. You should switch to vc2 or another one before you do any work. Up to you. =========== Subject: Re: Is the Linux boot sequence logged? From: Ramon Gandia <rfg@nook.net> Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 09:16:15 -0900 Paul Fontenot wrote: > > Why not just use 'dmesg | less'? I do and it works just great. Boy oh boy. Here we go again. Can't you read english? dmesg does not contain ALL of what was on the booting screen. It is a fallacy to believe that it does. However, it may contain what you want. With my --noclear option, ALL of what was on screen is available to you. If you do not believe me, try it for yourself and compare. Particularly if you get error messages, for the most part they do not show up in dmesg or in /var/log/messages. Some do, though. Example of messages that OFTEN do not show up on dmesg or /var/log/messages are: SCSI error messages SIOADDRT error messages ext2 messages calling for efsck The reason for this is that in order for the messages to go into the dmesg file, the module or kernel component that generates the message has to specifically send it to the log file whether it be dmesg or messages. If the developer did not put the code in, it does not go there. As time goes on, the code gets fixed and the stuff goes into those files, but new people write stuff and forget and the code is released. So my advice will work 100% of the time, but the dmsg and /var/log/messages file are not guaranteed to hold the error information if the code writer forgot to include support for it or there is a hardware problem preventing the writing of the messages. ============= Subject: Re: Is the Linux boot sequence logged? From: Ramon Gandia <rfg@nook.net> Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 17:51:09 -0900 Bob Taylor wrote: > > Of course not clearing the screen works. However, what about logger? > Why does Red Hat put it into /usr/bin and not /sbin. Unless I'm *way* > off using logger in the rc scripts for such as echo would log them > to /var/log/messages. I do not know. Sounds like something to experiment with. Would you be willing to do it and report to us? It would be very useful to see ALL of the messages go to a log file. ============ Subject: Re: Is the Linux boot sequence logged? From: wanger@redhat.com (Mike Wangsmo) Date: 4 Apr 1999 16:20:44 GMT >> > Of course not clearing the screen works. However, what about logger? >> > Why does Red Hat put it into /usr/bin and not /sbin. Unless I'm *way* >> > off using logger in the rc scripts for such as echo would log them >> > to /var/log/messages. The initscripts in starbuck (Red Hat Linux 5.9) log all startup messages into /var/log/boot.log === Subject: Re: Which log files can tell me why it wont dismount properly? From: Alan Mead <adm@ipat.com> Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 17:33:36 -0600 At 11:12 PM 11/1/99 GMT, you wrote: > > >Hello, > >Which log files can tell me why it wont dismount properly on RH6? /var/log/messages gets a lot of stuff in it. If I think I did something (like issue a umount) i do a 'ls -ltr /var/log' and see which (if any) logs were updated in the last couple seconds. Then I do a tail like this 'tail -10 /var/log/messages'. But I'll bet there is some other reason for your inability to un mount (like you typed 'unmount' or 'dismount' instead of 'umount' or you've cd'd into the subtree that you're trying to un mount). To solve your current problem, post more information about what exactly you're trying to do, what you've done, and how it's not working. You should be more specific and folks here will gladly help you solve your problem. === Subject: Re: viewing of /var/logs From: Nate Waddoups <linuxlists@whatever.net> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 16:14:11 -0800 (PST) On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Bruce Williams wrote: > Whats the best way of viewing the log files, and what are the main files to look at. > I seem to remember that there was a X program to view log files. Dunno if this is the 'best' way, but I run the following in a telnet window or at the console: /usr/bin/tail -f \ /var/log/messages \ /var/log/maillog \ /var/log/secure \ /var/log/httpd/*[a-z] \ /var/log/xferlog I've only got a handful of users, so this is a convenient way to keep an eye on things. On a busier system, maillog and httpd logs would probably get out of hand. If I want to dig through a particular log file, I use less. If I want to know if something in particular has happened, I grep. === Subject: Re: viewing of /var/logs From: fred smith <fredex@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 20:50:37 -0500 I just keep a root login on console #1 (ALT-F1) doing "less /var/log/messages" followed by giving the "F" command to less once it starts up. That's equivalent to doing "tail -f /var/log/messages", except you can do CTRL-C and scroll back and forth thru the log, then do "F" again to go back to watching the tail of the file. === Subject: Re: viewing of /var/logs From: Charles Galpin <cgalpin@lighthouse-software.com> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 23:08:08 -0500 (EST) On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, fred smith wrote: > > I just keep a root login on console #1 (ALT-F1) doing "less /var/log/messages" > followed by giving the "F" command to less once it starts up. That's > equivalent to doing "tail -f /var/log/messages", except you can do CTRL-C > and scroll back and forth thru the log, then do "F" again to go back to > watching the tail of the file. and what's really nice is if you do a search for something, it highlights the matches. Then when in follow mode, if a match scrolls by, it still keeps highlighting! ===