Description of Problem: The /sbin/getkey program has some bugs when certain values are used with the -c option. If '-c 0' is used, then any message set with -m will fail to be displayed and getkey will wait for input indefinitely. If -c is used with a negative number, it appears that getkey will continue to count downward toward negative infinity. The rc.sysinit file uses -c with -m in order to display a countdown message to control how many seconds to wait for input before selecting the default autofsck option in a filesystem recovery situation. If /etc/sysconfig/autofsck sets AUTOFSCK_TIMEOUT to 0, the system will wait for input forever without displaying any message. (This might sort-of make sense, as the message it would display now would probably be "Press Y within 0 seconds to force file system integrity check". That message wouldn't make sense in either the case where '-c 0' is supposed to indicate an infinite wait OR instant selection of the default.) /sbin/getkey could probably also use some documentation, like a man page! Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: /sbin/getkey -c 5 -m $"Counting down from %d" n (Works fine) /sbin/getkey -c 0 -m $"Counting down from %d" n (No text output) /sbin/getkey -c -1 -m $"Counting down from %d" n (Countdown forever) Press 'n' with the above to break out of the countdown.
Fixed in initscripts-8.22.1. Thanks for your report.