Greetings! Near the end of the boot process, one of the boot scripts, rc.sysinit, runs the command "rc.sysinit:dmesg -s 131072 > /var/log/dmesg". So, the file in /var/log is just that, a file. This is because of what the dmesg command does. It dumps the kernel ring buffer message fifo. Note that it is a fifo. As the kernel runs, this fifo will eventually get overwritten and the boot stuff will be lost. So running the dmesg command will give you the current contents of the fifo. looking at /var/log/dmesg will give you the contents of the fifo as it looked near the end of the boot process. Clear as mud? -Michael >>> rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 06/25/03 07:42AM >>> On 25 Jun 2003, Mike Chambers wrote: > On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 06:41, edwarner99@xxxxxxxxx wrote: > > > Where can I find the boot screen messages? I've looked > > in all my logs, but can't find any reference to an > > error I'm getting. Modprobe: can't locate module > > bsd.comp > > Type "dmesg" or look at /var/log/messages. perhaps someone can clarify this for me, but there are two sources of "dmesg" output lines: the "dmesg" command itself, and /var/log/dmesg. based on what i've read, since the kernel ring buffer has a finite size, unless you run "dmesg" soon after booting, the earliest kernel-generated boot messages may be dropped from the ring buffer. is this the case with /var/log/dmesg? anyone want to take a crack at explaining this carefully? rday -- Shrike-list mailing list Shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/shrike-list
