# Boot Messages -- Logging? [Solved]

## Dave_Lindquist

I've never been able to find anywhere on my system that logs the console output during the boot process.

I can track most of the early kernel initialization stuff through dmesg, and can check whether services are running or not through rc-status, but messages that occur during the rest of the boot (and specific errors when starting services), I can't seem to access anywhere...

Is there anything that logs these messages?

For example, at some point through my boot on my desktop box, I see an error message complaining about System.map.  Now it doesn't seem to cause any problems, and it's probably something simple I mucked up last time I recompiled the kernel, but I can't tell what the problem is, because it scrolls off too quickly...

It would be really nice to have something that I can review to see the full output of the boot process -- does anyone have any pointers for me?

TIA!Last edited by Dave_Lindquist on Wed Jan 03, 2007 7:33 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## chrbecke

 */etc/conf.d/rc wrote:*   

> # RC_BOOTLOG will generate a log of the boot messages shown on the console.  
> 
> # Useful for headless machines or debugging.  You need to emerge the 
> 
> # app-admin/showconsole package for this to work.  Note that this probably
> ...

 

And emerge app-admin/showconsole, of course.

HTH

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## Dave_Lindquist

Cool, thanks!  I'll have to try that...

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## Dave_Lindquist

Yep, works like a charm...

Just to clarify, since it doesn't seem to be stated anywhere...  The boot messages go into your /var/log/boot.msg file.

In addition, the messages in this file seem to pick up right where dmesg left off, and end just before services are being started (it would be nice if it logged the services starting, but oh well  :Wink: 

So, for example, mine starts at:

```
 * Checking root filesystem ...

Reiserfs super block in block 16 on 0x802 of format 3.6 with standard journal

...
```

and ends at:

```
...

 * Mounting local filesystems ...         [ ok ]

...

 * Cleaning /var/lock, /var/run ...       [ ok ]

 * Cleaning /tmp directory ...            [ ok ]

```

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## swimmer

Hmm - this does not work with me :-/

Are you using bootsplash? Which architecture? 

I am on AMD64 with media-gfx/splashutils-1.3-r2 and plain vesafb ...

Greetz

swimmer

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## Dave_Lindquist

I'm not using bootsplash, and there's a great big warning that it probably won't work with bootsplash  :Wink: 

I'm on plain 'ol x86 (actually an AMD64 chip, but running 32-bit only).

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## PantsMan

I too have been keen for the console boot messages to be logged and came across this option and thought hurray my prayers have been answered... but no, not really.

This is all I get in my /var/log/boot.msg:

```
 

* Skipping root filesystem check (fstab's passno == 0) ...

  [ ok ]

 * Remounting root filesystem read/write ...

  [ ok ]

 * Using /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 as config:

 *   Loading module usbhid ...

  [ ok ]

 *   Loading module e1000 ...

  [ ok ]

 *   Loading module 3c59x ...

  [ ok ]

 * Autoloaded 3 module(s)

 * Checking all filesystems ...

Data: clean, 729111/4194304 files, 7702380/8387930 blocks

  [ ok ]

 * Mounting local filesystems ...

  [ ok ]

 * Mounting USB device filesystem (usbfs) ...

  [ ok ]

 * Mounting misc binary format filesystem ...

  [ ok ]

 * Activating (possible) swap ...

  [ ok ]

 * Setting system clock using the hardware clock [Local Time] ...

  [ ok ]

 * Configuring kernel parameters ...

  [ ok ]

 * Updating environment ...

  [ ok ]

 * Cleaning /var/lock, /var/run ...

  [ ok ]

 * Cleaning /tmp directory ...

  [ ok ]

```

pretty lame  :Sad: 

I want the whole lot, not just those few messages!

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## riczan

Dear gentoo fellow users:

I've always wanted to know where can I see all the start up messages when one turns on the linux box.

There are always all this [ok] messages and they keep passing by.

Well, now I got a [!!] messages and all I can read before it goes out of the screen is:

something like error /dev/hda10 [!!]

This is my boot partition and I'm worried. (I made a back up already).

Question is: Where can I see the messages that pass by at start up. dmesg and /var/log/messages have

no information on my hard drive error.

What can I do to check and fix my hard drive?

Thanks a lot.

Cheers

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## John R. Graham

Boot Messages -- Logging? [Solved]

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## SnakeByte

Hi,

if both dmesg and the system log do not show the errors

they may be printed by one of the init scripts.

Boot the sysrem with an additional 2 as argument to not enter X

and you should be able to scroll up with shift-pageup.

If there is something with the filesystem you can use

```
/sbin/fsck
```

.

regards

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## nixnut

merged above three posts here.

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## midnite

one of my Gentoo Linux have no monitor and keyboard. i use SSH to access it from another computer.

Is there some way to log the messages when boot (before login) as i can see nothing from my SSH client?

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## Skymotz

Not exactly what you would see on the screen. But you could add the syslog daemon to boot runlevel. For kernel time messages use dmesg.

Greets Moritz

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## Hu

If you need very early boot messages, you could configure the kernel to log to a serial console.  You need a serial cable and another machine which will receive the messages, though.  I use this to control headless boxes and it works quite well.  If you go this route, you need to add console=ttyS0,baud-rate to your kernel boot line, and you should also configure your boot loader to print to a serial console.  After stripping cruft, my grub.conf for a serial console boot:

```
serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --parity=no

terminal --timeout=10 serial

timeout 8

default 0

title Gentoo

    root (hd0,0)

    kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 console=ttyS0,115200

```

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## think4urs11

merged the above three messages here

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