Console output during boot

[Doug Hardie]

I have one server (Raspberry Pi 4) which during boot shows all the hardware configuration, but then stops until the Login prompt appears. The other servers show the startup of each service and various other outputs. There is a 10 minute gap on the one server and I would like to see where it is during that process for that time. I have tried to find differences between the server configurations and haven't found the one that controls the startup output. What controls that? Thanks,

-- Doug

[Frank Leonhardt]

On 30/04/2026 01:30, Doug Hardie wrote:

I have one server (Raspberry Pi 4) which during boot shows all the hardware configuration, but then stops until the Login prompt appears.  The other servers show the startup of each service and various other outputs.  There is a 10 minute gap on the one server and I would like to see where it is during that process for that time.  I have tried to find differences between the server configurations and haven't found the one that controls the startup output.  What controls that?  Thanks,

As no one else has said anything, all I can think of is the rc_startmsgs variable in rc.conf. This defaults to "yes", meaning display messages like Starting cron, Starting sshd and so on. Are these what you're missing?

You say the config is the same, and therefore rc.conf is the same, but this is an override for /etc/defaults/rc.conf.

Have a good recursive grep around for anything that mentions rc_startmsgs (easy when you have the name!)

There's a boot_mute setting in loader.conf but I think that suppresses hardware probe stuff only.

You can also turn up the verbosity by setting rc_debug and rc_info to "yes".

But if it's the Starting.... messages you're not seeing then rc_stargmsgs is what suppresses them. My guess, FWIW, is you've got a DNS resolver issue - but I don't use a Raspberry Pi.

Regards, Frank.

[Doug Hardie]

> On May 2, 2026, at 08:52, Frank Leonhardt <freeb...@fjl.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 30/04/2026 01:30, Doug Hardie wrote:
>> I have one server (Raspberry Pi 4) which during boot shows all the hardware configuration, but then stops until the Login prompt appears. The other servers show the startup of each service and various other outputs. There is a 10 minute gap on the one server and I would like to see where it is during that process for that time. I have tried to find differences between the server configurations and haven't found the one that controls the startup output. What controls that? Thanks,
>>
>>
> As no one else has said anything, all I can think of is the rc_startmsgs variable in rc.conf. This defaults to "yes", meaning display messages like Starting cron, Starting sshd and so on. Are these what you're missing?

No. rc_startmsgs is set and rc_quiet is not set.

> You say the config is the same, and therefore rc.conf is the same, but this is an override for /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
> Have a good recursive grep around for anything that mentions rc_startmsgs (easy when you have the name!)
> There's a boot_mute setting in loader.conf but I think that suppresses hardware probe stuff only.

loader.conf man page says the console "nullconsole" command only affects the loader output. I am seeing all the loader output.

> You can also turn up the verbosity by setting rc_debug and rc_info to "yes".

Added both of them and there was no change.

> But if it's the Starting.... messages you're not seeing then rc_stargmsgs is what suppresses them. My guess, FWIW, is you've got a DNS resolver issue - but I don't use a Raspberry Pi.
> Regards, Frank.

ntpd doesn't seem to have an issue with DNS. The DNS server is on the LAN.


-- Doug

[Frank Leonhardt]

On 04/05/2026 21:21, Doug Hardie wrote:

As no one else has said anything, all I can think of is the rc_startmsgs variable in rc.conf. This defaults to "yes", meaning display messages like Starting cron, Starting sshd and so on. Are these what you're missing?
No.  rc_startmsgs is set and rc_quiet is not set.

This could be your problem. rc_startmsgs must be set to "yes" somewhere. However, you might not have understood exactly what I was saying.

Inside a file /etc/defaults/rc.conf there should be a like this:

rc_startmsgs="YES"     # Show "Starting foo:" messages at boot

You can override this to "no" in /etc/rc.conf but if it really is not set to anything (which is what you said) it won't be set to the default "yes". In other words, if it's not set in /etc/rc.conf and for some reason it's missing from /etc/defaults/rc.conf then it won't be set to "yes" and you won't get any messages.

It could also be a broken /etc/rc.subr. Make sure this is normal.

You might also have $rc_quiet set somehow (other options like faststart switch it on using the service command). You can have faststart set globally for every service start with rc_fast="yes".

/etc/rc.conf is just a shell script, so it might be an idea to put stuff like "echo rc_quite=$rc_quiet rc_fast=$rc_fast in there and check what's happening.

You can also set a flag "rc_debug=yes" to have it run all it's scripts with the -x option and see exactly where it goes.

Finally, you can get a dump of the non-standard settings using "sysrc -a", and a list of all the settings using "sysrc -A".

If you're still having troubles, please post "sysrc -A".

Regards, Frank.