What happens if a linux kernel argument is passed twice with different values?
As the question states, what if I pass
kernel /vmlinuz audit=1 audit=0
Will auditing enabled or disabled? Or will the kernel just freak out? Or is it undefined and will depend on the build of the kernel/argument being passed?
Solution 1:
Well, looking at the Vanilla code in linux/kernel/params.c and the parse_one
function (for v3.2.6) I would assume that audit=0
would be the version used by the kernel as its the last one in the list.
static int parse_one(char *param, char *val, const struct kernel_param *params, unsigned num_params, int (*handle_unknown)(char *param, char *val)) { unsigned int i; int err; /* Find parameter */ for (i = 0; i < num_params; i++) { if (parameq(param, params[i].name)) { /* No one handled NULL, so do it here. */ if (!val && params[i].ops->set != param_set_bool) return -EINVAL; DEBUGP("They are equal! Calling %p\n", params[i].ops->set); mutex_lock(¶m_lock); err = params[i].ops->set(val, ¶ms[i]); mutex_unlock(¶m_lock); return err; } } if (handle_unknown) { DEBUGP("Unknown argument: calling %p\n", handle_unknown); return handle_unknown(param, val); } DEBUGP("Unknown argument `%s'\n", param); return -ENOENT; }
I am not near a GNU/Linux machine to verify this right now, and it would also depend on patches done by the distributor of your kernel.