On some architectures, the boot process involves de-registering the boot
console (early boot), initialize drivers and then re-register the console.
This mechanism introduces a window in which no printk can happen on the
console and messages are buffered and then printed once the new console is
available.
If a kernel crashes during this window, all it's left on the boot console
is "console [foo] enabled, bootconsole disabled" making debug of the crash
rather 'interesting'.
By adding "keep_bootcon" option, do not unregister the boot console, that
will allow to printk everything that is happening up to the crash.
The option is clearly meant only for debugging purposes as it introduces
lots of duplicated info printed on console, but will make bug report from
users easier as it doesn't require a kernel build just to figure out where
we crash.
Signed-off-by: Fabio M. Di Nitto <fabbione@fabbione.net>
Acked-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Greg KH <gregkh@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
