How to stop kernel messages from flooding my console?

Question

I'm using Centos 6, rsyslog logging. Console is flooded with kernel messages.

• Klogd is not running (I'm using rsyslog)
• Rsyslog config does not direct anything to the console
• Even tried stopping rsyslog altogether

Still something is flooding my console with kernel log messages. What it is and how do I make it stop?

Update: These are the messages generated by the kernel (hardware, iptables, etc.), stuff that goes out of /proc/kmsg, like this:

Shorewall:pub2loc:DROP:IN=br0 OUT= MAC=xxx SRC=xxx DST=xxx LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=128 ID=15731 DF PROTO=TCP SPT=63767 DPT=3493 WINDOW=8192 RES=0x00 SYN URGP=0

Answer 1

I suggest you alter your /etc/sysctl.conf. Specifcally, you want to tweak the kernel.printk line.

# Uncomment the following to stop low-level messages on console
kernel.printk = 3 4 1 3

I am not sure what the centos default settings are, but I seems likely that have things set more verbose then you need.

Also do see the shorewall section on logging. You don't have to use the LOG target for logging, you can use other tools, or adjust the log severity, and tweak things to control where you messages go.

Answer 2

I found this helpful as well. On RHEL based distros you can cat /proc/sys/kernel/printk to see what your current settings are.

Four values are found in the printk file. Each of these values define a different rule for dealing with error messages. The first value, called the console loglevel, defines the lowest priority of messages printed to the console. (Note that, the lower the priority, the higher the loglevel number.) The second value sets the default loglevel for messages without an explicit loglevel attached to them. The third value sets the lowest possible loglevel configuration for the console loglevel. The last value sets the default value for the console loglevel.

Use of the LOGLEVEL parameter in /etc/sysconfig/init to set the console loglevel is no longer supported. To set the console loglevel in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, pass loglevel=' as a boot time parameter. For example, loglevel=6 will print all messages less than 6 (not equal to just less than).

Credit to:

• RHEL 6 - E.3.9. /proc/sys/
• Linuxtopia - Kernel Log Levels

Answer 3

Here is the "official" way to do it, according to RedHat:

To set the console loglevel in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, pass loglevel=' as a boot time parameter.