init/console: Use ttynull as a fallback when there is no console

stdin, stdout, and stderr standard I/O stream are created for the init
process. They are not available when there is no console registered
for /dev/console. It might lead to a crash when the init process
tries to use them, see the commit 48021f98130880dd742 ("printk: handle
blank console arguments passed in.").

Normally, ttySX and ttyX consoles are used as a fallback when no consoles
are defined via the command line, device tree, or SPCR. But there
will be no console registered when an invalid console name is configured
or when the configured consoles do not exist on the system.

Users even try to avoid the console intentionally, for example,
by using console="" or console=null. It is used on production
systems where the serial port or terminal are not visible to
users. Pushing messages to these consoles would just unnecessary
slowdown the system.

Make sure that stdin, stdout, stderr, and /dev/console are always
available by a fallback to the existing ttynull driver. It has
been implemented for exactly this purpose but it was used only
when explicitly configured.

Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Tested-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
Acked-by: Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20201111135450.11214-2-pmladek@suse.com

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c
index 1af84337cb18..b3fcf446f99e 100644
--- a/init/main.c
+++ b/init/main.c
@@ -1468,8 +1468,14 @@ void __init console_on_rootfs(void)
 	struct file *file = filp_open("/dev/console", O_RDWR, 0);
 
 	if (IS_ERR(file)) {
-		pr_err("Warning: unable to open an initial console.\n");
-		return;
+		pr_err("Warning: unable to open an initial console. Fallback to ttynull.\n");
+		register_ttynull_console();
+
+		file = filp_open("/dev/console", O_RDWR, 0);
+		if (IS_ERR(file)) {
+			pr_err("Warning: Failed to add ttynull console. No stdin, stdout, and stderr for the init process!\n");
+			return;
+		}
 	}
 	init_dup(file);
 	init_dup(file);