... snip ...
> No information about local daemons, for example.
>
> Any idea why I can't see the information using the console scrollback
> buffer after boot? The information detailing the start of daemons, for
> example.
>
> Greetings.
Darn. You're right. I looked before, but saw what wasn't there (in
/var/log/messages). This stands to reason, one cannot log through
syslogd before syslogd is started. By the same token, one cannot
log to *any* disk file, before a filesystem has been mounted with
write access. This is non-trivial, because / is not mounted (remounted)
for write until /etc/rc is well along. In fact, it is not knowable
in advance exactly when various filesystems may be mounted (due to
the possibility of nfs mounts).
What you are seeing on /dev/console is the standard output and
standard error from /sbin/init and its various descendents (sh,
sh's scripts, and so on).
I don't think there is an official way to get this output anywhere
other than the console. So you have two options -- the easy
and the hard.
The easy option is to rig up another machine with a serial port
to the subject machine's serial port and use a serial console. On
the second machine, your output from the boot>> prompt onwards can
be readily captured to disk or wherever you'd like. Man boot.conf
on how to get the console output sent to serial port. Man tip,
man cu, maybe see /usr/ports/comms/minicom or kermit for terminal
software.
The hard option is to figure out why you can't page backwards
in /dev/console.
I just did a fresh, unaltered installation of 4.1_STABLE to a test/
sacrifice machine. (Painless enough to do with OpenBSD, cheer-cheer).
There was no screen memory wiping on the console when rebooting.
There was a formfeed/newpage stunt, early during kernel loading.
After boot, and after logging in as root, I can "Page Up" into the
console history, to *before* BSD booted, catching the last few lines
of output from GRUB bootloader, which happens to be installed on
this machine, and of course all the "white on blue" kernel load.
All I can think of is that you are doing something during startup
that causes loss of console buffer. I suspected "kbd" of doing this,
but I can do "kbd es" without ill effect. In my case /etc/wsconsctl.conf
is default, i.e. containing nothing but comments. Perhaps you are
doing something with wsconsctl that causes it to have the effects
you observe? Loading a character set? Try without kbd or wsconsctl
during boot. (mv /etc/kbdtype /etc/XXkbdtype, mv /etc/wsconsctl.conf
/etc/XXwsconsctl.conf)
/sbin/getty *used* to clear the screen before issuing the login prompt,
due to control characters in /etc/gettytab, in the "im" field, but that
has been mercifully absent for several releases now. Perhaps you have
restored that for some reason (ending over-the-shoulder snooping, say).
Maybe you are doing something in /etc/ksh.kshrc or similar file.
Maybe /dev/console uses your video card's memory, or somesuch. The
card on my test machine is an ATI Rage XL. Yours is some sort of S3
I don't know about.
Good luck, and I hope I have been of some use.
Dave
--
Resistance is futile. You've already been assimilated.
