EBFONT
Linux / POSIXERRORCriticalFilesystemHIGH confidence
Bad Font File Format
Production Risk
Rare; only relevant to console/terminal font management.
What this means
EBFONT (errno 59) is a Linux-specific error returned when a font file has an invalid or unrecognized format.
Why it happens
- 1Loading a font file with corrupted or unsupported format into the kernel font subsystem
How to reproduce
Kernel font loading with bad font file.
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
// Loading a corrupt font via ioctl ioctl(STDOUT_FILENO, PIO_FONT, bad_font_data); // Returns -1, errno = EBFONT
expected output
Bad font file format (EBFONT)
Fix
Use a valid console font file
WHEN When loading fonts via ioctl
Use a valid console font file
# Use setfont with a known-good PSF font setfont /usr/share/consolefonts/Lat15-Terminus16.psf.gz
Why this works
PSF fonts in /usr/share/consolefonts are validated by the distribution.
Sources
Official documentation ↗
Linux Programmer Manual errno(3)
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