[systemd-devel] [PATCH v4] use systemd.debug on the kernel command line, not "debug"

[Greg KH]

On Sat, Apr 05, 2014 at 07:11:47AM +0200, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 04:08:15PM +0200, Hannes Reinecke wrote:
> > From: Greg KH <gregkh at linuxfoundation.org>
> > 
> > If the kernel is started with "debug", that's for the kernel to switch
> > into debug mode.  We should rely on a namespace for our options, like
> > everything else (with the exception of "quiet").  Some people want to
> > only debug the kernel, not systemd, and the opposite as well so make
> > everyone happy.
> Essentialy, this patch adds systemd.debug as an alias for
> systemd.log_level=debug systemd.log_target=console. But it doesn't
> really fix anything, just moves the initial problem to a different set
> of options.

What needs to be "fixed"?

> This isn't useful. In addition, it is reasonable to use "debug" to
> turn on verbose mode for the kernel + init combo, since in practice
> this is what people need to diagnose boot problems.

Well, the intersection of people that have a problem with both the
kernel and systemd at boot time are probably quite small.  As a kernel
developer, I tell people to turn on debug all the time to find issues in
different drivers and the like.  They aren't having any problems with
systemd, so any extra messages that it causes, isn't going to be
helpful.

Probably the same thing happens for people who are having problems with
systemd.

So I thought it would make more sense to have separate options, as the
two things really are two different projects / code bases.  Having the
same flag makes it easy for a small subset of people who would be doing
work in both areas, and even then, having to add a simple
"systemd.debug" flag to the command line for that doesn't seem to be a
big deal.

thanks,

greg k-h