Added manual page and options for readbootlog.

doc/Changelog

@@ -48,6 +48,12 @@ sysvinit (2.92) unreleased; urgency=low
       style formating.
       Closes Debian bug #571590
       Thanks to Philipp Marek for the patch.
+    * Added new tool (readbootlog) which will read the /var/log/boot file
+      produced by bootlogd. The output is displayed cleaned up so there
+      are no control characters. This avoids the need to use sed or related
+      tools to try to clean up the contents of the log.
+    * Added manual page for readbootlog program.
+
 
 sysvinit (2.91) world; urgency=low
 

man/bootlogd.8.todo

@@ -1,52 +0,0 @@
-'\" -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
-.\" Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Miquel van Smoorenburg.
-.\"
-.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
-.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
-.\" (at your option) any later version.
-.\"
-.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
-.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
-.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
-.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
-.\"
-.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-.\" along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-.\" Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
-.\"
-.TH BOOTLOGD 8 "Aug 24, 1999" "" "Linux System Administrator's Manual"
-.SH NAME
-bootlogd \- record boot messages
-.SH SYNOPSIS
-.B /sbin/bootlogd
-.RB [ \-d ]
-.RB [ \-r ]
-.RB [ \-v ]
-.RB [ " -l logfile " ]
-.RB [ " -p pidfile " ]
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-\fBBootlogd\fP runs in the background and copies all strings sent to the
-\fI/dev/console\fP device to a logfile. If the logfile is not accessible,
-the messages will be buffered in-memory until it is.
-.SH OPTIONS
-.IP \fB\-d\fP
-Do not fork and run in the background.
-.IP \fB\-r\fP
-If there is an existing logfile called \fIlogfile\fP rename it to
-\fIlogfile~\fP unless \fIlogfile~\fP already exists.
-.IP \fB\-v\fP
-Show version.
-.IP \fB\-l logfile\fP
-Log to this logfile. The default is \fI/var/log/boot.log\fP.
-.IP \fB\-p pidfile\fP
-Put process-id in this file. The default is no pidfile.
-.SH NOTES
-There is no standard way to find out the real console device if you have
-a new-style \fI/dev/console\fP device (major 5, minor 1). \fBBootlogd\fP
-might have some difficulties to do this, especially under very old
-or very new kernels.
-.SH AUTHOR
-Miquel van Smoorenburg, miquels@cistron.nl
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
-.BR dmesg (8)

man/readbootlog.1

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+'\" -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
+.\" Copyright (C) 1998-2004 Miquel van Smoorenburg.
+.\"
+.\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+.\" (at your option) any later version.
+.\"
+.\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
+.\"
+.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+.\" along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+.\" Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
+.\"
+.\"{{{}}}
+.\"{{{  Title
+.TH READBOOTLOG 1 "NOV 12, 2018" "" "Linux System Administrator's Manual"
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  Name
+.SH NAME
+readbootlog \- show contents of the boot log, stripping away control characters
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  Synopsis
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B readbootlog
+.RB [ \-h ]
+.RB "[ \-\fBf\fP \fIfile\fP ]"
+.br
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  Description
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.B readbootlog
+is a tool for reading the boot log (by default /var/log/boot). The program
+strips away control characters and non-human readable contents from the log
+file. Output is dumped to the terminal where it can be piped or redirected
+to a file.
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  Options
+.SH OPTIONS
+.IP "\fB\-f\fP \fIfile\fP"
+Tells \fBreadbootlog\fP to use a specific file instead of \fB/var/log/boot\fP.
+.IP \fB\-h\fP
+Displays a brief help message.
+.\"{{{  Files
+.SH FILES
+/var/log/boot
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  Author
+.SH AUTHOR
+Jesse Smith <jsmith@resonatingmedia.com>
+.\"}}}
+.\"{{{  See also
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.BR bootlogd (8)
+.\"}}}

src/Makefile

@@ -24,9 +24,9 @@ MNTPOINT=
 # For some known distributions we do not build all programs, otherwise we do.
 BIN	=
 SBIN	= init halt shutdown runlevel killall5 fstab-decode
-USRBIN	= last mesg
+USRBIN	= last mesg readbootlog
 
-MAN1	= last.1 lastb.1 mesg.1
+MAN1	= last.1 lastb.1 mesg.1 readbootlog.1
 MAN5	= initscript.5 inittab.5 initctl.5
 MAN8	= halt.8 init.8 killall5.8 pidof.8 poweroff.8 reboot.8 runlevel.8
 MAN8	+= shutdown.8 telinit.8 fstab-decode.8
@@ -139,6 +139,9 @@ shutdown:	dowall.o shutdown.o utmp.o
 bootlogd:	LDLIBS += -lutil $(STATIC)
 bootlogd:	bootlogd.o bootlogd.h
 
+readbootlog:	LDLIBS += $(STATIC)
+readbootlog:	readbootlog.o bootlogd.h
+
 fstab-decode:	LDLIBS += $(STATIC)
 fstab-decode:	fstab-decode.o
 

src/readbootlog.c

@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 #include <stdio.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
 #include <string.h>
+#include <unistd.h>
 #include "bootlogd.h"
 
 #ifndef MAX_LINE
@@ -8,7 +10,13 @@
 
 void print_usage()
 {
-
+   printf("readbootlog reads the system's boot log, stripping away\n");
+   printf("control characters to make the log human readable.\n\n");
+   printf("Usage for readbootlog: readbootlog [-h] [-f logfile]\n");
+   printf("\t\t-h             display this help message\n");
+   printf("\t\t-f <logfile>   display a specific boot log file\n");
+   printf("\t\t               default is to use %s\n", LOGFILE);
+   printf("\n");
 }
 
 /*
@@ -75,6 +83,24 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   char line[MAX_LINE];
   char output[MAX_LINE];
   char *status;
+  int c;
+
+  /* check provided options */
+  while ( (c = getopt(argc, argv, "hf:") ) != EOF)
+  {
+      switch (c)
+      {
+         case 'h':
+               print_usage();
+               exit(0);
+         case 'f':
+              log_filename = optarg;
+              break;      
+         default:
+              print_usage();
+              exit(1);
+      }
+  }   /* done processing arguments */
 
   log_file = fopen(log_filename, "r");
   if (log_file)