strange boot messages

[Michael Grant]

I'm running Debian 11.2 stable on a Linode (a popular VPS). After a recent update, I think from
around 25th of January, I'm starting to see some strange messages in
my logs:

systemd[1]: First Boot Complete was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionFirstBoot=yes).

systemd[1]: getty on tty2-tty6 if dbus and logind are not available was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionPathExists=!/usr/bin/dbus-daemon).

systemd[1]: Platform Persistent Storage Archival was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/fs/pstore).

systemd[1]: Set Up Additional Binary Formats was skipped because all trigger condition checks failed.

systemd[1]: Store a System Token in an EFI Variable was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionPathExists=/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/LoaderFeatures-4a67b082-0a4c-41cf-b6c7-440b29bb8c4f).

systemd-udevd[277]: Network interface NamePolicy= disabled on kernel command line, ignoring.

systemd[1]: fast remote file copy program daemon was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionPathExists=/etc/rsyncd.conf).


Are these just informational or are these problems I need to fix? I
did some searching but couldn't find much.

Please CC me, I'm not currently on the list.

Michael Grant

[Cindy Sue Causey]

I can't answer that, but I can share in this curiosity from within
Bookworm. Goes back to 2022.02.20 for one partition and 2022.02.14 for
the other Bookworm partition.

The /var/log/sys* variants date back further than that which is
notable since yours starting appearing even earlier. Our date
difference could somehow be about the releases that we're each using.
The date differences for mine stand out since both partitions are
updated basically daily per each with minimal difference in the
packages affected each day, mostly just libreoffice as the difference.

Grepping dmesg for "skipped" found these:

systemd[1]: File System Check on Root Device was skipped because of a
failed condition check
(ConditionPathExists=!/run/initramfs/fsck-root).
systemd[1]: Repartition Root Disk was skipped because all trigger
condition checks failed.

Grepping /var/log/sys* for "skipped" shows that I likely received
most, if not all, of the other ones you shared here.

System is running, but it makes one wonder what might run even
smoother if those weren't appearing. I'm not seeing a glaring "E" or
"error" so there's that comfort. That word "failed" is interesting,
but maybe it just means we have defaults set that are intended to
speed up booting or something?

Or not.

Cindy :)
--
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *

[Kushal Kumaran]

cc-ing as requested

These are normal. Several bits of bootup are conditional based on the
ambient environment (whether it is a first boot, whether you have
specific hardware features such as pstore or efi available, or whether
you have particular binary packages are installed, etc.). My system has
the same messages in slightly different format.

Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Kernel Module supporting RPCSEC_GSS being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Set Up Additional Binary Formats being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in File System Check on Root Device being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Rebuild Hardware Database being skipped.Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Platform Persistent Storage Archival being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in First Boot Complete being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Dispatch Password Requests to Console Directory Watch being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:28 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Virtual Machine and Container Storage (Compatibility) being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:29 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Dispatch Password Requests to Console Directory Watch being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:29 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in Set Up Additional Binary Formats being skipped.
Feb 23 22:26:29 copper systemd[1]: Condition check resulted in File System Check on Root Device being skipped.

I guess either a version or a configuration difference results in your
system logging the actual condition.

--
regards,
kushal

[Michael Grant]

Thanks Kushal (and thanks Cindy Sue).  Glad I’m not the only one seeing these!

 

An observation to anyone who might be able to do something about this in the future... it would be less stressful or scary if these messages were said in such a way that they didn’t look like failures.

 

Is ConditionFirstBoot something set when Debian boots for the first time after an install?  It seems like this shouldn’t even be a message since it’s going to be printed into the log forever going forward!  First boot, sure, say it’s true and do whatever but after that, imho, no need to print anything unless perhaps some verbose flag is set.

 

Anyway, this stuff may not even be Debian specific, just my observations from a user (a sysadmin user).  Hope this gets tidied up at some point.

 

I’m happy and relieved you knew what these were and will now summarily ignore them in the future!

 

Michael Grant