Strange kernel log message

[Ceri Davies]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 07:58:41PM +0000, Bruce Cran wrote:
> Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>> On 2007-11-26 09:58, Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote:
>>   
>>> So I have this in my security run output:
>>> kernel log messages:
>>> +++ /tmp/security.hLYJI0kF	Sun Nov 25 03:01:02 2007
>>> +<<<<222>2>>>NNNMNMMIII M  III SIISAS SAAA  3 303,020,0 ,,  EE 
>>> IEIIESSSAIAA S A f ffffff
>>> +
>>> +
>>> +f
>>> 
>>> WTF now?
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure if that's a real kernel message that got garbled or whether
>>> I should be worried about naughtiness.
>>>     
>> 
>> It looks like multiple messages overlapping each other.  Removing 3
>> characters every 4 bytes in the output produces things which seem
>> vaguely recognizable:
>> 
>>     <22NNI II A ,,,EISA  fff
>>     <<2>NMI  SS 300  ISAAfff
>> 
>> There's a sysctl option which you can tweak to make this less likely to
>> happen, but I am not sure about its name.  Our console gurus can help
>> you track it down and tune its value :)
> 
> The kernel option I've seen mentioned before to at least make this less 
> common is:
> 
> options PRINTF_BUFR_SIZE=128    # Prevent printf output being interspersed.

Aha, thanks guys.

Ceri
-- 
That must be wonderful!  I don't understand it at all.
                                                  -- Moliere
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