If the console selection has been temporarily switched using the swcons command, and the write to the targeted device or file is unsuccessful, the console device driver switches back to the console device or file from which the system was started and tries the write again. This prevents important system messages from being lost in case the temporary console target is unavailable or unsuccessful. The console device driver should stay connected to the original system device until another swcons command is issued. If the current console selection is a device, it redirects the read subroutine call. An ext parameter passed to the readx or writex subroutine is passed to the device driver supporting the console target, or else ignored.
All output sent to the console is logged to a system log file.
Only output sent to the console is logged. Any output sent to a device acting as the console is not logged. The alog command is typically used to view the console log file. The epoch time is formatted and displayed in the user's locale date and time when the file is output by the alog command. When the console device is configured or when any modification is made to the console log file, ownership of the file is set to root and permissions are set to 622 to match that of the console device driver special file.