/var/log/messages question

[Tom Horsley]

On Tue, 31 May 2011 10:17:56 -0600
Phil Meyer wrote:

> So in summary, if you see a syslog startup, followed within a few lines 
> by the word ' Linux ', and what comes after that appear to be BIOS info, 
> and that all these messages happen in the same second or two, you have 
> found the top of the boot sequence.

All of which make my point that it would sure be a lot
simpler if there was merely a known string always printed
at the top :-).

At one time I relied on timestamp gaps till I was trying to
figure out the logs on a system where ntp was fighting
with something else and the time kept wildly swinging
on the running system.