[systemd-devel] [PATCH 0/3] Fix issues re: visibility of status messages

[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 10:18:27PM +0200, Olivier Brunel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm running Arch Linux, have been using systemd-204, and recently tried the new
> 207 release, and I have been having some issues with it. One was that status
> messages would just stop at some point near the end of the boot process, and
> also that I wouldn't get any during a shutdown/reboot.
> 
> It might be useful to note that I don't start a getty on tty1, which is why I
> expect to see all status messages until default target is reached, even after
> the getty/login has been started (which happens on tty2).
> 
> After looking into it, I came up with the following patches to fix the issue.
> The reason status messages would stop was that the getty was started, and
> systemd then stopped using the console to avoid "collisions" w/ gettys.
> 
> However, as I said I don't have a getty started on tty1 so for me that is a bug,
> as there's no reason not to keep printing status messages on tty1.
> 
> The lack of messages on shutdown/reboot was also linked to this, because if
> no_console_output was set to true during boot, it'd stay there and prevent
> messages to show up on shutdown.
> 
> To fix this (in the event it was set to true on boot) a patch simply resets it
> to false on job_shutdown_magic(), but I'm not exactly sure if that's the right
> way to do this.
All 3 patches applied. I *think* they are all correct, but this code
has so many corner cases that it's hard to be sure. I made some
tweaks, please check that it still works. Sorry for the delay. In the
future, if you don't get an answer within a week or two, please holler :)
Patches do sometimes slip through, especially when there are a lot
of changes like recently, and a ping to the ml will help to bring the
thread to the bottom. 

> FYI I should add that in a similar setup as the one I described, this will not
> be enough to keep messages on tty1, since fsck's units are now RemainAfterExit
> (see https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66784), which means they're
> seen by systemd as "owning" the console (as far as outputing messages there is
> concerned I mean), and it will therefore stop printing status messages.
> 
> I'm not sure you want to "fix" this, as it might be only a cosmetic issue for a
> small usecase hence not worth the trouble, so I've simply "undone" it using a
> .conf file on my end, figured I should mention it though.
Hm, we could detect this case by looking at services in the SERVICE_EXITED
substate. It might actually be worth fixing, since almost everything now
is RemainAfterExit=true.

Zbyszek