Re: [PATCH 1/2] init/console: Use ttynull as a fallback when there is no console

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Wed Nov 11 2020 - 11:35:38 EST


On Wed, Nov 11, 2020 at 02:54:49PM +0100, Petr Mladek wrote:
> 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.
>
> Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@xxxxxxxx>

Tricky, and nice to use the existing driver for this, I like it:

Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>