How do you capture a boot log ? Cut & paste from minicom ?

[Ed of the Mountain]

Dumb question I expect.  I have been scrolling up minicom terminal and cut & paste the start of the boot process, then I scroll down and cut & past the remainder.  

Is there a log file created on the target filesystem somewhere?  Or some way to make minicom log to a file?

Thanks in advance,

-Ed

[Andrew Bradford]

You can get /var/log/dmesg to get the kernel's output from boot
(usually).

Or just use a terminal emulator that allows you to scroll back easily
and select large amounts of multiline text. picocom works well for me
with my virtual terminal set to infinite scrollback.

-Andrew

[Ed of the Mountain]

Thank you for your reply.

I did not see a file named  /var/log/dmesg.  But I suppose this could be because I am running a DM8168 today rather than the BeagleBoard-xM?

I guess what I had been doing with minicom was not so dumb.  

Thank you for your assistance,

-Ed

[Chris MacGregor]

On 12/21/2012 01:08 PM, Ed of the Mountain wrote:

Thank you for your reply.

I did not see a file named  /var/log/dmesg.  But I suppose this could be because I am running a DM8168 today rather than the BeagleBoard-xM?

I guess what I had been doing with minicom was not so dumb. 

No, not so dumb, although there is a slightly easier way.  Minicom does have a "capture to log file" option: ^A L (listed as "Capture" in the help screen available via ^A Z).

Also, you could try running "dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.log" if there isn't a dmesg log file automatically available.

Cheers,
    Chris

[Ed of the Mountain]

Thank you Chris for the minicom log tip!  And in the case the system never makes it to the login prompt I guess the terminal clues is all you get without a JTAG debugger or something.

Ahh, that makes more sense about dmesg.  It is not a log file but you can redirect the dmesg output to a log file for analysis.  I misunderstood Andrew.  

I am learning a lot about embedded Linux since I received my BeagleBoard-xm about 3 weeks ago.  I largely abandoned embedded development years ago for object oriented PC software development.  Embedded Linux is making it fun again and I may have to change my career focus back to embedded again.

-Ed 

[Sid Boyce]

> --
> For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss
>
>
Why not use gtkterm, it's a GUI which is easy to setup and you can save
everything that comes up on screen to a file.
I have been using it for probably 16 years.
It's very similar to HyperTerminal for Windows and described as a clone
of HyperTerminal.
It's an available package for Fedora and Ubuntu.
For openSUSE I built my own from source.
Regards
Sid.

--
Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot
Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support
Senior Staff Specialist, Cricket Coach
Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

[ED SUTTON]

>Why not use gtkterm, it's a GUI which is easy to setup and you can save everything that comes up on screen to a file.
>I have been using it for probably 16 years.

Thanks Sid.  I will give gtkterm a try

-Ed

[Gary Thomas]

On 2012-12-21 13:42, Ed of the Mountain wrote:
> Dumb question I expect. I have been scrolling up minicom terminal and cut & paste the start of the boot process, then I scroll down and cut & past the remainder.
>
> Is there a log file created on the target filesystem somewhere? Or some way to make minicom log to a file?

Minicom can capture to a file - use ^A-L
Note: it only saves what is sent to the console *after* you enable it.

You can see the messages on your system in /var/log/messages or
by running the program 'dmesg'

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas | Consulting for the
MLB Associates | Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

[Sid Boyce]

--
For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss
 
 

Ever since I found gtkterm I ditched minicom and kermit. It stops a lot of messing about with command line stuff though I do a lot else via the command line.