Request for someone to enable "bootlogd"

Question

This is not a request for a package per say (hopefully it's simpler):
What I am requesting is for someone to figure out how to enable a boot log file for Arch systems.  This means a recorded text file which contains all of the messages echoed to the screen during the boot process -- the ones that usually go by too fast to make any use of and then are lost forever.
1) No, this functionality is not provided by dmesg.
2) Most distributions have such a feature (eg. redhat, debian, ubuntu...)
3) Some distros accomplish the task via a binary called "bootlogd."  Arch (at least my arch64 system) has this already (/sbin/bootlogd), though I have not been able to make it work.  I don't know if the issue is simply that I don't know where to place the call to the binary (though I know that inside /etc/rc.sysinit after the call to minilogd is *not* the right place), or something deeper.  But still I think it is possible, maybe just by putting the call in the right spot in the right script.
4) The action that results from trying what I did in #3 above (putting /sbin/bootlogd in /etc/rc.sysinit after the call to minilogd) is:  After boot-up one finds a zero-size log file in the default location (/var/log/boot).  If you then remove the call to bootlogd from the sysinit script, reboot, and look in /var/log/ again, you find that the "boot" file is still there, only now it contains the shutdown informational messages (or at least some of them).
5) On a debian system I believe the feature is provided using bootlogd, however they clearly have some files in place that Arch does not, so I don't know how helpful the following might be:  edit the contents of "/etc/default/bootlogd" to read:
       # Run bootlogd at startup ?
       #BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=No
       BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=Yes
6) Regarding the man page "BUGS" section:  Arch does have the new-style console device:  "There is no standard way to find out the real console device if you have a new-style /dev/console device (major 5, minor 1)"  however the behavior I describe in #4 above makes me think that it is still working, just needs to be called from precisely the right location.
Several people replied to my initial post(s) that this would be a desirable feature, so please help if you can.
--> BTW, just checked a debian64 system... /dev/console is exactly the same as on my arch64 system.
Last edited by djg1971 (2010-01-27 21:58:00)

Answer 1

If your objective is to see all boot messages as they appear on the console,
you can use this solution;
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dis … t_messages
I would also rather have a log of boot messages into /var/log/boot but it seems there isn't a solution
easily available from my searches so far.
Maybe someone will post a solution here.
Cheers