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Messages from the kernel are created by humans, usually using one of the many variants of the printk() function. But, increasingly, those messages are read by machines in the form of log file parsers, automated management systems, and so on. The machines have, for some time, struggled to make sense out of those human-created messages which, often as not, are unpredictable in their organization, lacking important information, and subject to change. So it is not surprising that there has been ongoing interest in adding some structure to kernel log messages; the subject was recently raised by the audience at the Collaboration Summit kernel panel. At about the same time, a new attempt to improve kernel logging was posted to the linux-kernel mailing list; click below (subscribers only) for a report from next week's Kernel Page.