Or a user could fill up /tmp and keep on trying to write to it, while 
watching the kernel moan about the filesystem being full. There are 
lots of ways to make the kernel spew, which are generally there to 
provide important operational information.

This is why the sysctl to control it is there - people who don't want 
it can turn it off. The default to on for DIAGNOSTIC was based on my 
interpretation of DIAGNOSTIC as "I want more checks and information" 
and it seemed reasonable to me. Do I misread the intent of DIAGNOSTIC?

I ran a 1,700 customer ISP for two weeks in September '98, based 
almost entirely on FreeBSD servers. They have this particular logging 
(and that sysctl to control it), and I found it extremely valuable.

	Erik <fair@clock.org>