Re: [PATCH 4.19 regression fix] printk: For early boot messages check loglevel when flushing the buffer

[Petr Mladek]

On Thu 2018-09-06 16:29:40, Sergey Senozhatsky wrote:
> On (09/05/18 13:02), Petr Mladek wrote:
> > Note that the first registered console prints all messages
> > even without this flag.
> 
> Hmm, OK, interesting point.
> 
> I assumed that the first console usually has CON_PRINTBUFFER bit set.
> Or even a CON_PRINTBUFFER | CON_ANYTIME combo. E.g. 8250. It sort of
> makes sense to have CON_PRINTBUFFER for the first console. Any later
> consoles [e.g. fbcon, netcon] don't necessarily have CON_PRINTBUFFER.
> 
> And the first console has CON_PRINTBUFFER bit set. Well, just because
> it sounds reasonable. Those were the main assumptions behind my code
> snippet. Was any of those assumptions wrong?

This assumption makes sense. In fact, I was wrong. I thought that
console_seq/console_idx were not updated until the first console
was registered. But it is not the case.

It means that the hack with exclusive_console might be usable.
But I would prefer to do it a cleaner way.


> > I played with another solution, see the patch below. It defines
> > which messages have a valid NOCONS flag according to the msg_seq
> > number. IMHO, it is a bit more straightforward but it is still
> > a hack. I am not super happy about it.
> 
> I just skimmed through it, and probably missed some parts. But I sort
> of expected to see some console_valid_nocons_seq manipulations in
> register_console(), when we register a new CON_PRINTBUFFER console
> on already running system.

I do not see any reason for this. If quiet/debug/loglevel kernel
parameters are proceed before register_console() call then
console_valid_nocons_seq is already set to the right sequence
number. Otherwise console_loglevel should be still the default
value and there is no reason to re-calculate nocons flag.

But it is rather complicated, still hacky, ...


> > Hmm, I seriously think about reverting the commit 375899cddcbb
> > ("printk: make sure to print log on console.") and solving it
> > another way.
> 
> I can agree, definitely. That's one of the options.

I prefer the revert for now.

Best Regards,
Petr