This reverts commit 757055ae8d.
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 3cffa06aee
("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>
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 48021f9813 ("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
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>
