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path: root/drivers/tty/ttynull.c
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2021-01-08Revert "init/console: Use ttynull as a fallback when there is no console"Petr Mladek
This reverts commit 757055ae8dedf5333af17b3b5b4b70ba9bc9da4e. The commit caused that ttynull was used as the default console on several systems[1][2][3]. As a result, the console was blank even when a better alternative existed. It happened when there was no console configured on the command line and ttynull_init() was the first initcall calling register_console(). Or it happened when /dev/ did not exist when console_on_rootfs() was called. It was not able to open /dev/console even though a console driver was registered. It tried to add ttynull console but it obviously did not help. But ttynull became the preferred console and was used by /dev/console when it was available later. The commit tried to fix a historical problem that have been there for ages. The primary motivation was the commit 3cffa06aeef7ece30f6 ("printk/console: Allow to disable console output by using console="" or console=null"). It provided a clean solution for a workaround that was widely used and worked only by chance. This revert causes that the console="" or console=null command line options will again work only by chance. These options will cause that a particular console will be preferred and the default (tty) ones will not get enabled. There will be no console registered at all. As a result there won't be stdin, stdout, and stderr for the init process. But it worked exactly this way even before. The proper solution has to fulfill many conditions: + Register ttynull only when explicitly required or as the ultimate fallback. + ttynull should get associated with /dev/console but it must not become preferred console when used as a fallback. Especially, it must still be possible to replace it by a better console later. Such a change requires clean up of the register_console() code. Otherwise, it would be even harder to follow. Especially, the use of has_preferred_console and CON_CONSDEV flag is tricky. The clean up is risky. The ordering of consoles is not well defined. And any changes tend to break existing user settings. Do the revert at the least risky solution for now. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kselftest/20201221144302.GR4077@smile.fi.intel.com/ [2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/d2a3b3c0-e548-7dd1-730f-59bc5c04e191@synopsys.com/ [3] https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/linux-um/patch/20210105120128.10854-1-thomas@m3y3r.de/ Reported-by: Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> Reported-by: Vineet Gupta <vgupta@synopsys.com> Reported-by: Thomas Meyer <thomas@m3y3r.de> Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com> Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> Acked-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2020-11-20init/console: Use ttynull as a fallback when there is no consolePetr Mladek
stdin, stdout, and stderr standard I/O stream are created for the init process. They are not available when there is no console registered for /dev/console. It might lead to a crash when the init process tries to use them, see the commit 48021f98130880dd742 ("printk: handle blank console arguments passed in."). Normally, ttySX and ttyX consoles are used as a fallback when no consoles are defined via the command line, device tree, or SPCR. But there will be no console registered when an invalid console name is configured or when the configured consoles do not exist on the system. Users even try to avoid the console intentionally, for example, by using console="" or console=null. It is used on production systems where the serial port or terminal are not visible to users. Pushing messages to these consoles would just unnecessary slowdown the system. Make sure that stdin, stdout, stderr, and /dev/console are always available by a fallback to the existing ttynull driver. It has been implemented for exactly this purpose but it was used only when explicitly configured. Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> Reviewed-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> Tested-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> Acked-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20201111135450.11214-2-pmladek@suse.com
2019-04-16tty: Add NULL TTY driverVincent Whitchurch
If no console driver is enabled (or if a non-present driver is selected with something like console=null in an attempt to disable the console), opening /dev/console errors out, and init scripts and other userspace code that relies on the existence of a console will fail. Symlinking /dev/null to /dev/console does not solve the problem since /dev/null does not behave like a real TTY. To just provide a dummy console to userspace when no console driver is available or desired, add a ttynull driver which simply discards all writes. It can be chosen on the command line in the standard way, i.e. with console=ttynull. Signed-off-by: Vincent Whitchurch <vincent.whitchurch@axis.com> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>