Re: [patch 1/3] kmsg: Kernel message catalog macros.

From: "Tim Hockin" <thockin@hockin.org>
To: "Jan Blunck" <jblunck@suse.de>
Cc: "Greg KH" <gregkh@suse.de>, "Joe Perches" <joe@perches.com>,
	schwidefsky@de.ibm.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-s390@vger.kernel.org,
	lf_kernel_messages@lists.linux-foundation.org,
	"Andrew Morton" <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
	"Michael Holzheu" <holzheu@de.ibm.com>,
	"Gerrit Huizenga" <gh@us.ibm.com>,
	"Randy Dunlap" <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>,
	"Jan Kara" <jack@suse.cz>, "Pavel Machek" <pavel@ucw.cz>,
	"Sam Ravnborg" <sam@ravnborg.org>,
	"Jochen Voß" <jochen.voss@googlemail.com>,
	"Kunai Takashi" <kunai@linux-foundation.jp>,
	"Tim Bird" <tim.bird@am.sony.com>
Subject: Re: [patch 1/3] kmsg: Kernel message catalog macros.
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:39:52 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <b3ece790808150839i54fde73uf068cb04d4027156@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20080815112117.GP10078@bolzano.suse.de>

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 4:21 AM, Jan Blunck <jblunck@suse.de> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 14, Tim Hockin wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:44 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@suse.de> wrote:
>> >
>> > What is wrong with what we have already agreed to standardise on here
>> > people?  dev_printk() for devices!  It uniquely shows the device, what
>> > driver is bound to it (if any), the bus id, and everything else.
>>
>> Part of the problem, imho, is the "if any" part.  But I am more than happy to
>> build on existing solutions.  All the world is not a dev, though.  I'd like to
>> be able to report something like an OOM kill in (roughly) the same way as an
>> ATA error, and I want (though could be talked out of) a way to tell these
>> "events" (for lack of a better word) apart from plain-old-printk()s.
>
> I don't think that he wants to unify all the printk's in the system. I don't
> think that reporting all errors "in the same way as an ATA error" makes any
> sense. That would just lead to very stupid and unnatural messages for all
> errors that are not like "ATA errors". Annotation of existing errors is a much
> more flexible and feasible solution to that problem.

Please don't misinterpret.  I don't want to make other errors parse
like an ATA error, I want to make the plumbing be parallel.  I want
one umbrella mechanism for reporting things that are more important
than just-another-printk().

Because frankly, "parse dmesg" is a pretty crappy way to have to
monitor your system for failures, and I am tired of explaining to
people why we still do that.

Tim