Re: setting standard fds to console in translator libs

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:

> All non-bootstrap libdiskfs based passive translators on root
> will open /dev/console at the moment, while all passive translators
> not based on libdiskfs will just have all output dropped.  It is this
> discrepancy that lead us to the question, not the difference between
> bootstrap and non-bootstrapping filesystems.

I understand that, but you've described the situation differently from
the right way, and that leads to confusion.

There are three kinds of filesystems:

1) Bootstrap filesystems
2) Passive translators
3) Active translators

Number (1) should write to the console (at least initially).
Number (2), shucks, who knows?  There is no good answer, but making an
attempt at syslog is good.  
Number (3) should write to stderr and/or syslog.

The fact that diskfs currently is different from non-diskfs is because
it is supporting the bootstrap filesystem method, and getting (2)
wrong.  But getting (2) wrong is ok until we have a scheme to get it
right.  Non-diskfs cases of (2) also get it wrong, but in a different
way.

Cases where diskfs gets (3) wrong should be fixed; that's a bug.  We
know how to handle (3).  Changing other libraries to also get (3)
wrong in the same way is a step backwards.