Boot output¶

By default an Obarun machine boots quietly. Everything the boot sequence prints goes to the catch-all logger rather than to the screen, so you see very little and then a login prompt.

That is a default, not a constraint.

Read the boot log¶

Whatever scrolled past, or did not:

$ 66 log system

Useful variants:

Command	Effect
`66 log -f system`	Follow new lines live
`66 log -g <regex> system`	Only lines matching a POSIX extended regex
`66 log -s <time> system`	Only lines at or after a time
`66 log <service>`	A single service instead of the system log
`66 log`	Every service interleaved with the system catch-all

Show the boot on the console¶

The knob is CATCHLOG in /etc/66/init.conf:

CATCHLOG=1

1, the default, redirects the boot process's standard output to the catch-all logger. 0 does not, so the output stays on /dev/console and you watch the boot happen.

# $EDITOR /etc/66/init.conf

How much output¶

VERBOSITY, in the same file, controls how talkative the boot process is:

VERBOSITY=1

Accepted values run from 0 to 5. Raise it while diagnosing a boot problem, lower it once you are done.

/etc/66/init.conf¶

The file holds key=value pairs, one per line. Every key is optional: an absent key keeps its built-in default. Key names must not be changed.

Key	Default	Meaning
`VERBOSITY`	`1`	Verbosity of the boot process, `0` to `5`
`LIVE`	`/run/66`	Absolute path where the scandir is created
`TREE`	unset	When set, pins the boot to a single tree of that name
`UMASK`	`0022`	Initial file umask for every started process, in octal
`CATCHLOG`	`1`	`1` sends boot output to the catch-all logger, `0` leaves it on the console

The full reference is in the 66 documentation.

One-off changes from the bootloader¶

Any valid init.conf key can be passed on the kernel command line, which is the least invasive way to debug a boot you cannot log into:

root=/dev/sda3 ro VERBOSITY=4 CATCHLOG=0

Add it to your bootloader entry, or edit the entry once from the bootloader's own menu. See GRUB and Syslinux.