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This section is a modified version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initrd which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
An initial ramdisk is a temporary file system used in the boot process of the Linux kernel. initrd and initramfs refer to slightly different schemes for loading this file system into memory. Both are commonly used to make preparations before the real root file system can be mounted.
Many Linux distributions ship a single, generic kernel image that is intended to boot as wide a variety of hardware as possible. The device drivers for this generic kernel image are included as loadable modules, as it is not possible to statically compile them all into the one kernel without making it too large to boot from computers with limited memory or from lower-capacity media like floppy disks.
This then raises the problem of detecting and loading the modules necessary to mount the root file system at boot time (or, for that matter, deducing where or what the root file system is).
To further complicate matters, the root file system may be on a software RAID volume, LVM, NFS (on diskless workstations), or on an encrypted partition. All of these require special preparations to mount.
Another complication is kernel support for hibernation, which suspends the computer to disk by dumping an image of the entire system to a swap partition or a regular file, then powering off. On next boot, this image has to be made accessible before it can be loaded back into memory.
To avoid having to hardcode handling for so many special cases into the kernel, an initial boot stage with a temporary root file system —now dubbed early user space— is used. This root file system would contain user-space helpers that would do the hardware detection, module loading and device discovery necessary to get the real root file system mounted.
An image of this initial root file system (along with the kernel image) must be stored somewhere accessible by the Linux bootloader or the boot firmware of the computer. This can be:
The bootloader will load the kernel and initial root file system image into memory and then start the kernel, passing in the memory address of the image.
Depending on which algorithms were compiled statically into it, the kernel can currently unpack initrd/initramfs images compressed with gzip, bzip2 and LZMA.
dracut can generate a customized initrams image which contains only whatever is necessary to boot some particular computer, such as ATA, SCSI and filesystem kernel modules (host-only mode).
dracut can also generate a more generic initramfs image (default mode).
dracut’s initramfs starts only with the device name of the root file system (or its UUID) and must discover everything else at boot time. A complex cascade of tasks must be performed to get the root file system mounted:
If the root file system is on NFS, dracut does then:
If the root file system is on an encrypted block device:
dracut uses udev, an event-driven hotplug agent, which invokes helper programs as hardware devices, disk partitions and storage volumes matching certain rules come online. This allows discovery to run in parallel, and to progressively cascade into arbitrary nestings of LVM, RAID or encryption to get at the root file system.
When the root file system finally becomes visible:
The final root file system cannot simply be mounted over /, since that would make the scripts and tools on the initial root file system inaccessible for any final cleanup tasks. On an initramfs, the initial root file system cannot be rotated away. Instead, it is simply emptied and the final root file system mounted over the top.
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To create a initramfs image, the most simple command is:
# dracut
This will generate a general purpose initramfs image, with all possible
functionality resulting of the combination of the installed dracut modules and
system tools. The image is /boot/initramfs-<kernel version>.img and
contains the kernel modules of the currently active kernel with version
<kernel version>.
If the initramfs image already exists, dracut will display an error message, and to overwrite the existing image, you have to use the --force option.
# dracut --force
If you want to specify another filename for the resulting image you would issue a command like:
# dracut foobar.img
To generate an image for a specific kernel version, the command would be:
# dracut foobar.img 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20
A shortcut to generate the image at the default location for a specific kernel version is:
# dracut --kver 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20
If you want to create lighter, smaller initramfs images, you may want to specify the --host-only or -H option. Using this option, the resulting image will contain only those dracut modules, kernel modules and filesystems, which are needed to boot this specific machine. This has the drawback, that you can’t put the disk on another controller or machine, and that you can’t switch to another root filesystem, without recreating the initramfs image. The usage of the --host-only option is only for experts and you will have to keep the broken pieces. At least keep a copy of a general purpose image (and corresponding kernel) as a fallback to rescue your system.
To see the contents of the image created by dracut, you can use the lsinitrd tool.
# lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img | less
To display the contents of a file in the initramfs also use the lsinitrd tool:
# lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /etc/ld.so.conf include ld.so.conf.d/*.conf
Some dracut modules are turned off by default and have to be activated manually. You can do this by adding the dracut modules to the configuration file /etc/dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf. See Part V, “DRACUT.CONF(5)”. You can also add dracut modules on the command line by using the -a or --add option:
# dracut --add bootchart initramfs-bootchart.img
To see a list of available dracut modules, use the --list-modules option:
# dracut --list-modules
or, if you have a dracut version earlier than 008, issue the command:
# for mod in /usr/lib/dracut/modules.d/*; do echo ${mod##*/??}; doneSometimes you don’t want a dracut module to be included for reasons of speed, size or functionality. To do this, either specify the omit_dracutmodules variable in the dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf configuration file (see Part V, “DRACUT.CONF(5)”), or use the -o or --omit option on the command line:
# dracut -o "multipath lvm" no-multipath-lvm.img
If you need a special kernel module in the initramfs, which is not automatically picked up by dracut, you have the use the --add-drivers option on the command line or the drivers vaiable in the /etc/dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf configuration file (see Part V, “DRACUT.CONF(5)”):
# dracut --add-drivers mymod initramfs-with-mymod.img
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The generated initramfs.img file normally does not contain any system configuration files (except for some special exceptions), so the configuration has to be done on the kernel command line. With this flexibility, you can easily boot from a changed root partition, without the need to recompile the initramfs image. So, you could completly change your root partition (move it inside a md raid with encryption and LVM on top), as long as you specify the correct filesystem LABEL or UUID on the kernel command line for your root device, dracut will find it and boot from it.
The kernel command line usually can be configured in /boot/grub/grub.conf, if grub is your bootloader and it also can be edited in the real boot process in the grub menu.
The kernel command line can also be provided by the dhcp server with the root-path option. See Chapter 7, Network Boot.
For a full reference of all kernel command line parameters, see Part IV, “DRACUT(8)”.
This is the only option dracut really needs to boot from your root partition.
Because your root partition can live in various environments, there are a lot of
formats for the root= option. The most basic one is root=<path to device
node>:
root=/dev/sda2
Because device node names can change, dependent on the drive ordering, you are encouraged to use the filesystem identifier (UUID) or filesystem label (LABEL) to specify your root partition:
root=UUID=19e9dda3-5a38-484d-a9b0-fa6b067d0331
or
root=LABEL=myrootpartitionlabel
To see all UUIDs or LABELs on your system, do:
# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
or
# ls -l /dev/disk/by-label
If your root partition is on the network see Chapter 7, Network Boot.
If you have to input passwords for encrypted disk volumes, you might want to set the keyboard layout and specify a display font.
A typical german kernel command would contain:
vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 vconsole.keymap=de-latin1-nodeadkeys locale.LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
Setting these options can override the setting stored on your system, if you use a modern init system, like systemd.
For dracut versions prior to version 008 the line would look like:
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=de-latin1-nodeadkeys
Sometimes it is required to prevent the automatic kernel module loading of a
specific kernel module. To do this, just add rd.blacklist=<kernel module
name>, with <kernel module name> not containing the .ko
suffix, to the kernel command line. For example:
rd.driver.blacklist=mptsas rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau
The option can be specified multiple times on the kernel command line.
If you want to speed up the boot process, you can specify as much information for dracut on the kernel command as possible. For example, you can tell dracut, that you root partition is not on a LVM volume or not on a raid partition, or that it lives inside a specific crypto LUKS encrypted volume. By default, dracut searches everywhere. A typical dracut kernel command line for a plain primary or logical partition would contain:
rd.luks=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.md=0 rd.dm=0
On systems with dracut version prior to 008 the line would look like:
rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM
This turns off every automatic assembly of LVM, MD raids, DM raids and crypto LUKS.
Of course, you could also omit the dracut modules in the initramfs creation process, but then you would lose the posibility to turn it on on demand.
To add your own files to the initramfs image, you have several possibilities.
The --include option let you specify a source path and a target path. For example
# dracut --include cmdline-preset /etc/cmdline initramfs-cmdline-pre.img
will create an initramfs image, where the file cmdline-preset will be copied inside the initramfs to /etc/cmdline. --include can only be specified once.
# mkdir rd.live.overlay
# mkdir rd.live.overlay/etc
# mkdir rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d
# echo "ip=auto" >> rd.live.overlay/etc/cmdline
# echo export TESTVAR=testtest >> rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d/testvar.conf
# echo export TESTVAR=testtest >> rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d/testvar.conf
# tree rd.live.overlay/
rd.live.overlay/
└── etc
├── cmdline
└── conf.d
└── testvar.conf
# dracut --include rd.live.overlay / initramfs-rd.live.overlay.imgThis will put the contents of the rd.live.overlay directory into the root of the initramfs image.
The --install option let you specify several files, which will get installed in the initramfs image at the same location, as they are present on initramfs creation time.
# dracut --install 'strace fsck.ext3 ssh' initramfs-dbg.img
This will create an initramfs with the strace, fsck.ext3 and ssh executables, together with the libraries needed to start those. The --install option can be specified multiple times.
If your root partition is on a network drive, you have to have the network dracut modules installed to create a network aware initramfs image.
On a Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora system, this means, you have to install the dracut-network rpm package:
# yum install dracut-network
The resulting initramfs image can be served by a boot manager residing on your local hard drive or it can be served by a PXE/TFTP server.
How to setup your PXE/TFTP server can be found in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Storage Administration Guide.
If you specify rd.ip=auto on the kernel command line, then dracut asks a dhcp server about the ip adress for the machine. The dhcp server can also serve an additional root-path, which will set the root device for dracut. With this mechanism, you have static configuration on your client machine and a centralized boot configuration on your TFTP/DHCP server. If you can’t pass a kernel command line, then you can inject /etc/cmdline, with a method described in the section called “Injecting custom Files”.
To reduce the size of the initramfs, you should create it with by ommitting all dracut modules, which you know, you don’t need to boot the machine.
You can also specify the exact dracut and kernel modules to produce a very tiny initramfs image.
For example for a NFS image, you would do:
# dracut -m "nfs network base" initramfs-nfs-only.img
Then you would boot from this image with your target machine and reduce the size once more by creating it on the target machine with the --host-only option:
# dracut -m "nfs network base" --host-only initramfs-nfs-host-only.img
This will reduce the size of the initramfs image significantly.
If the boot process does not succeed, you have several options to debug the situation. Some of the basic operations are covered here. For more information you should also visit: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Dracut_problems
With dracut >= 002-11, you can inspect the rd.debug output with:
# less /run/initramfs/init.log # dmesg | less
# journalctl -ab
If you want to save that output, simply mount /boot by hand or insert an USB stick and mount that. Then you can store the output for later inspection.
In all cases, the following should be mentioned and attached to your bug report:
A device listing from device-mapper. This can be obtained by running the command
# dmsetup ls --tree
A list of block device attributes. This can be obtained by running the commands:
# blkid -p # blkid -p -o udev
Turn on dracut debugging (see the debugging dracut section), and attach all relevant information from the boot log. This can be obtained by running the command
# dmesg|grep dracut
As well as the information from the section called “All bug reports” include the following information:
Include physical volume information by running the command:
# lvm pvdisplay
Include volume group information by running the command:
# lvm vgdisplay
Include logical volume information by running the command:
# lvm lvdisplay
As well as the information from the section called “All bug reports”, include the following information:
If using software RAID disk partitions, please include the output of
# cat /proc/mdstat
This section details information to include when experiencing problems on a system whose root device is located on a network attached volume (e.g. iSCSI, NFS or NBD). As well as the information from the section called “All bug reports”, include the following information:
Please include the output of
# /sbin/ifup <interfacename> # ip addr show
Successfully debugging dracut will require some form of console logging during the system boot. This section documents configuring a serial console connection to record boot messages.
Open the file /etc/grub.conf for editing. Below the line 'timeout=5', add the following:
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 terminal --timeout=5 serial console
Also in /etc/grub.conf, add the following boot arguemnts to the 'kernel' line:
console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600
When finished, the /etc/grub.conf file should look similar to the example below.
default=0 timeout=5 serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 terminal --timeout=5 serial console title Fedora (2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_uc1-lv_root console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600 initrd /dracut-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64.img
Redirecting non-interactive output
You can redirect all non-interactive output to /dev/kmsg and the kernel will put it out on the console when it reaches the kernel buffer by doing
# exec >/dev/kmsg 2>&1 </dev/console
dracut offers a shell for interactive debugging in the event dracut fails to locate your root filesystem. To enable the shell:
Remove the boot arguments 'rhgb' and 'quiet'
A sample /etc/grub.conf bootloader configuration file is listed below.
default=0 timeout=5 serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 terminal --timeout=5 serial console title Fedora (2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_uc1-lv_root console=tty0 rd.shell initrd /dracut-2.6.29.5-191.fc11.x86_64.img
If system boot fails, you will be dropped into a shell as seen in the example below.
No root device found Dropping to debug shell. #
From the dracut debug shell, you can manually perform the task of locating and preparing your root volume for boot. The required steps will depend on how your root volume is configured. Common scenarios include:
The exact method for locating and preparing will vary. However, to continue with a successful boot, the objective is to locate your root volume and create a symlink /dev/root which points to the file system. For example, the following example demonstrates accessing and booting a root volume that is an encrypted LVM Logical volume.
Inspect your partitions using parted
# parted /dev/sda -s p Model: ATA HTS541060G9AT00 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 60.0GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 32.3kB 10.8GB 107MB primary ext4 boot 2 10.8GB 55.6GB 44.7GB logical lvm
You recall that your root volume was a LVM logical volume. Scan and activate any logical volumes.
# lvm vgscan # lvm vgchange -ay
You should see any logical volumes now using the command blkid:
# blkid /dev/sda1: UUID="3de247f3-5de4-4a44-afc5-1fe179750cf7" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda2: UUID="Ek4dQw-cOtq-5MJu-OGRF-xz5k-O2l8-wdDj0I" TYPE="LVM2_member" /dev/mapper/linux-root: UUID="def0269e-424b-4752-acf3-1077bf96ad2c" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" /dev/mapper/linux-home: UUID="c69127c1-f153-4ea2-b58e-4cbfa9257c5e" TYPE="ext3" /dev/mapper/linux-swap: UUID="47b4d329-975c-4c08-b218-f9c9bf3635f1" TYPE="swap"
From the output above, you recall that your root volume exists on an encrypted block device. Following the guidance disk encryption guidance from the Installation Guide, you unlock your encrypted root volume.
# UUID=$(cryptsetup luksUUID /dev/mapper/linux-root) # cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/mapper/linux-root luks-$UUID Enter passphrase for /dev/mapper/linux-root: Key slot 0 unlocked.
Next, make a symbolic link to the unlocked root volume
# ln -s /dev/mapper/luks-$UUID /dev/root
With the root volume available, you may continue booting the system by exiting the dracut shell
# exit
For more debugging options, see the section called “Debug” in Part VI, “DRACUT.CMDLINE(7)”.
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dracut uses a modular system to build and extend the initramfs image. All modules are located in /usr/lib/dracut/modules.d or in <git-src>/modules.d. The most basic dracut module is 99base. In 99base the initial shell script init is defined, which gets run by the kernel after initramfs loading. Although you can replace init with your own version of 99base, this is not encouraged. Instead you should use, if possible, the hooks of dracut. All hooks, and the point of time in which they are executed, are described in Chapter 10, Boot Process Stages.
The main script, which creates the initramfs is dracut itsself. It parses all arguments and sets up the directory, in which everything is installed. It then executes all check, install, installkernel scripts found in the modules, which are to be processed. After everything is installed, the install directory is archived and compressed to the final initramfs image. All helper functions used by check, install and installkernel are found in in the file dracut-functions. These shell functions are available to all module installer (install, installkernel) scripts, without the need to source dracut-functions.
A module can check the preconditions for install and installkernel with the check script. Also dependencies can be expressed with check. If a module passed check, install and installkernel will be called to install all of the necessary files for the module. To split between kernel and non-kernel parts of the installation, all kernel module related parts have to be in installkernel. All other files found in a module directory are module specific and mostly are hook scripts and udev rules.
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The init script in 99base is the main script, which prepares the root file system for usage, runs udev, mounts the real root device, kills the remaining processes, and switches to the real root device for further booting. dracut modules can insert custom script at various points, to control the boot process. These hooks are plain directories containing shell scripts ending with ".sh", which are sourced by init. Common used functions are in dracut-lib.sh, which can be sourced by any script.
The first thing init does, is to mount /proc and /sys and manually create the basic device nodes and symbolic links in /dev needed to execute basic commands. Then logging is setup according to kernel command line arguments. /dev/pts and /dev/shm are mounted and the first hook is sourced.
The cmdline hook is a place to insert scripts to parse the kernel command line and prepare the later actions, like setting up udev rules and configuration files.
In this hook the most important environment variable is defined: root. The second one is rootok, which indicates, that a module claimed to be able to parse the root defined. So for example, root=iscsi:…. will be claimed by the iscsi dracut module, which then sets rootok.
This hook is executed right after the cmdline hook and a check if root and rootok were set. Here modules can take action with the final root, and before udev has been run.
In this hook, you can set udev environment variables with udevadm control --property=KEY=value or control the further execution of udev with udevadm.
udev is triggered by calling udevadm trigger, which sends add events for all devices and subsystems.
Now the main loop of 99base/init begins. Here we loop until udev has settled and all scripts in initqueue/finished returned true. In this loop there are three hooks, where scripts can be inserted by calling /sbin/initqueue.
This hook gets executed every time a script is inserted here, regardless of the udev state.
This hooks gets executed, when the main loop counter becomes half of the rd.retry counter.
Before the root device is mounted all scripts in the hook pre-mount are executed. In some cases (e.g. NFS) the real root device is already mounted, though.
This hook is called before cleanup hook, This is a good place for actions other than cleanups which need to be called before pivot.
This hook is the last hook and is called before init finally switches root to the real root device. This is a good place to clean up and kill processes not needed anymore.
Init kills all udev processes, cleans up the environment, sets up the arguments for the real init process and finally calls switch_root. switch_root removes the whole filesystem hierarchy of the initramfs, chroot()s to the real root device and calls /sbin/init with the specified arguments.
To ensure all files in the initramfs hierarchy can be removed, all processes still running from the initramfs should not have any open file descriptors left.
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A simple example module is 96insmodpost, which modprobes a kernel module after udev has settled and the basic device drivers have been loaded.
All module installation information is in the file module-setup.sh.
First we create a check() function, which just exits with 0 indicating that this module should be included by default.
check():
return 0
The we create the install() function, which installs a cmdline hook with priority number 20 called parse-insmodpost.sh. It also installs the insmodpost.sh script in /sbin.
install():
inst_hook cmdline 20 "$moddir/parse-insmodpost.sh" inst_simple "$moddir/insmodpost.sh" /sbin/insmodpost.sh
The pase-instmodpost.sh parses the kernel command line for a argument rd.driver.post, blacklists the module from being autoloaded and installs the hook insmodpost.sh in the initqueue/settled.
parse-insmodpost.sh:
for p in $(getargs rd.driver.post=); do
echo "blacklist $p" >> /etc/modprobe.d/initramfsblacklist.conf
_do_insmodpost=1
done
[ -n "$_do_insmodpost" ] && /sbin/initqueue --settled --unique --onetime /sbin/insmodpost.sh
unset _do_insmodpostinsmodpost.sh, which is called in the initqueue/settled hook will just modprobe the kernel modules specified in all rd.driver.post kernel command line parameters. It runs after udev has settled and is only called once (--onetime).
insmodpost.sh:
. /lib/dracut-lib.sh
for p in $(getargs rd.driver.post=); do
modprobe $p
donecheck() is called by dracut to evaluate the inclusion of a dracut module in the initramfs.
check() should return with:
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Create an initramfs <image> for the kernel with the version <kernel version>. If <kernel version> is omitted, then the version of the actual running kernel is used. If <image> is omitted or empty, then the default location /boot/initramfs-<kernel version>.img is used.
dracut creates an initial image used by the kernel for preloading the block device modules (such as IDE, SCSI or RAID) which are needed to access the root filesystem, mounting the root filesystem and booting into the real system.
At boot time, the kernel unpacks that archive into RAM disk, mounts and uses it as initial root file system. All finding of the root device happens in this early userspace.
For a complete list of kernel command line options see dracut.cmdline(7).
To create a initramfs image, the most simple command is:
# dracut
This will generate a general purpose initramfs image, with all possible
functionality resulting of the combination of the installed dracut modules and
system tools. The image is /boot/initramfs-<kernel version>.img and
contains the kernel modules of the currently active kernel with version
<kernel version>.
If the initramfs image already exists, dracut will display an error message, and to overwrite the existing image, you have to use the --force option.
# dracut --force
If you want to specify another filename for the resulting image you would issue a command like:
# dracut foobar.img
To generate an image for a specific kernel version, the command would be:
# dracut foobar.img 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20
A shortcut to generate the image at the default location for a specific kernel version is:
# dracut --kver 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20
If you want to create lighter, smaller initramfs images, you may want to specify the --host-only or -H option. Using this option, the resulting image will contain only those dracut modules, kernel modules and filesystems, which are needed to boot this specific machine. This has the drawback, that you can’t put the disk on another controller or machine, and that you can’t switch to another root filesystem, without recreating the initramfs image. The usage of the --host-only option is only for experts and you will have to keep the broken pieces. At least keep a copy of a general purpose image (and corresponding kernel) as a fallback to rescue your system.
# dracut --kver 3.5.0-0.rc7.git1.2.fc18.x86_64
specify a space-separated list of dracut modules to call when building the initramfs. Modules are located in /usr/lib/dracut/modules.d. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --modules "module1 module2" ...
omit a space-separated list of dracut modules. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --omit "module1 module2" ...
add a space-separated list of dracut modules to the default set of modules. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --add "module1 module2" ...
force to add a space-separated list of dracut modules to the default set of modules, when -H is specified. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --force-add "module1 module2" ...
specify a space-separated list of kernel modules to exclusively include in the initramfs. The kernel modules have to be specified without the ".ko" suffix. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --drivers "kmodule1 kmodule2" ...
specify a space-separated list of kernel modules to add to the initramfs. The kernel modules have to be specified without the ".ko" suffix. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --add-drivers "kmodule1 kmodule2" ...
specify a space-separated list of kernel modules not to add to the initramfs. The kernel modules have to be specified without the ".ko" suffix. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --omit-drivers "kmodule1 kmodule2" ...
specify a space-separated list of kernel filesystem modules to exclusively include in the generic initramfs. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --filesystems "filesystem1 filesystem2" ...
add a space-separated list of fsck tools, in addition to dracut.conf's specification; the installation is opportunistic (non-existing tools are ignored)
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --fscks "fsck.foo barfsck" ...
specify configuration file to use.
Default: /etc/dracut.conf
specify configuration directory to use.
Default: /etc/dracut.conf.d
specify temporary directory to use.
Default: /var/tmp
Host-Only mode: Install only what is needed for booting the local host instead of a generic host and generate host-specific configuration.
If chrooted to another root other than the real root device, use "--fstab" and provide a valid /etc/fstab.
install the space separated list of files into the initramfs.
If [LIST] has multiple arguments, then you have to put these in quotes. For example:
# dracut --install "/bin/foo /sbin/bar" ...
Compress the generated initramfs using bzip2.
Make sure your kernel has bzip2 decompression support compiled in, otherwise you will not be able to boot. Equivalent to "--compress=bzip2"
Compress the generated initramfs using lzma.
Make sure your kernel has lzma decompression support compiled in, otherwise you will not be able to boot. Equivalent to "--compress=lzma -9"
Compress the generated initramfs using xz.
Make sure your kernel has xz decompression support compiled in, otherwise you will not be able to boot. Equivalent to "--compress=xz --check=crc32 --lzma2=dict=1MiB"
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The dracut command is part of the dracut package and is available from https://dracut.wiki.kernel.org
Harald Hoyer
Victor Lowther
Philippe Seewer
Warren Togami
Amadeusz Żołnowski
Jeremy Katz
David Dillow
Will Woods
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dracut.conf is loaded during the initialisation phase of dracut. Command line parameter will overwrite any values set here. dracut.conf.d/*.conf files are read in alphanumerical order and will overwrite parameters set in /etc/dracut.conf. Each line specifies an attribute and a value. A # indicates the beginning of a comment; following characters, up to the end of the line are not interpreted.
If chrooted to another root other than the real root device, use --fstab and provide a valid /etc/fstab.
ro_mnt Mount / and /usr read-only by default.
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The root device used by the kernel is specified in the boot configuration file on the kernel command line, as always.
The traditional root=/dev/sda1 style device specification is allowed, but not encouraged. The root device should better be identified by LABEL or UUID. If a label is used, as in root=LABEL=<label_of_root> the initramfs will search all available devices for a filesystem with the appropriate label, and mount that device as the root filesystem. root=UUID=<uuidnumber> will mount the partition with that UUID as the root filesystem.
In the following all kernel command line parameters, which are processed by dracut, are described.
"rd.*" parameters mentioned without "=" are boolean parameters. They can be turned on/off by setting them to {0|1}. If the assignment with "=" is missing "=1" is implied. For example rd.info can be turned off with rd.info=0 or turned on with rd.info=1 or rd.info. The last value in the kernel command line is the value, which is honored.
specify the block device to use as the root filesystem.
E.g.:
root=/dev/sda1 root=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.1-scsi-0:0:1:0-part1 root=/dev/disk/by-label/Root root=LABEL=Root root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3f5ad593-4546-4a94-a374-bcfb68aa11f7 root=UUID=3f5ad593-4546-4a94-a374-bcfb68aa11f7 root=PARTUUID=3f5ad593-4546-4a94-a374-bcfb68aa11f7
"auto" if not specified, e.g.:
rootfstype=ext3
resume from a swap partition
E.g.:
resume=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.1-scsi-0:0:1:0-part1 resume=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3f5ad593-4546-4a94-a374-bcfb68aa11f7 resume=UUID=3f5ad593-4546-4a94-a374-bcfb68aa11f7
keyboard translation table loaded by loadkeys; taken from keymaps directory; will be written as KEYMAP to /etc/vconsole.conf in the initramfs, e.g.:
vconsole.keymap=de-latin1-nodeadkeys
console font; taken from consolefonts directory; will be written as FONT to /etc/vconsole.conf in the initramfs; e.g.:
vconsole.font=LatArCyrHeb-16
taken from the environment; if no UNICODE is defined we set its value in basis of LANG value (whether it ends with ".utf8" (or similar) or not); will be written as LANG to /etc/locale.conf in the initramfs; e.g.:
locale.LANG=pl_PL.utf8
keypath is a path to key file to look for. It’s REQUIRED. When keypath ends with .gpg it’s considered to be key encrypted symmetrically with GPG. You will be prompted for password on boot. GPG support comes with crypt-gpg module which needs to be added explicitly.
keydev is a device on which key file resides. It might be kernel name of devices (should start with "/dev/"), UUID (prefixed with "UUID=") or label (prefix with "LABEL="). You don’t have to specify full UUID. Just its beginning will suffice, even if its ambiguous. All matching devices will be probed. This parameter is recommended, but not required. If not present, all block devices will be probed, which may significantly increase boot time.
If luksdev is given, the specified key will only be applied for that LUKS device. Possible values are the same as for keydev. Unless you have several LUKS devices, you don’t have to specify this parameter. The simplest usage is:
rd.luks.key=/foo/bar.key
As you see, you can skip colons in such a case.
dracut pipes key to cryptsetup with -d - argument, therefore you need to pipe to crypsetup luksFormat with -d -, too!
Here follows example for key encrypted with GPG:
gpg --quiet --decrypt rootkey.gpg \ | cryptsetup -d - -v \ --cipher serpent-cbc-essiv:sha256 \ --key-size 256 luksFormat /dev/sda3
If you use plain keys, just add path to -d option:
cryptsetup -d rootkey.key -v \ --cipher serpent-cbc-essiv:sha256 \ --key-size 256 luksFormat /dev/sda3
specify the device, where /boot is located. e.g.
boot=/dev/sda1 boot=/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.1-scsi-0:0:1:0-part1 boot=UUID=<uuid> boot=LABEL=<label>
This parameter can be specified multiple times.
It is recommended to either bind <interface> to a MAC with the ifname argument. Or use biosdevname to name your interfaces, which will then have names according to their hardware location.
explicit network configuration. If you want do define a IPv6 address, put it in brackets (e.g. [2001:DB8::1]). This parameter can be specified multiple times.
It is recommended to either bind <interface> to a MAC with the ifname argument. Or use biosdevname to name your interfaces, which will then have names according to their hardware location.
Assign network device name <interface> (ie "bootnet") to the NIC with MAC <MAC>.
Do not use the default kernel naming scheme for the interface name, as it can conflict with the kernel names. So, don’t use "eth[0-9]+" for the interface name. Better name it "bootnet" or "bluesocket".
root=dhcp alone directs initrd to look at the DHCP root-path where NFS options can be specified.
root-path=<server-ip>:<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]
root-path=nfs:<server-ip>:<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]
root-path=nfs4:<server-ip>:<root-dir>[,<nfs-options>]protocol defaults to "6", LUN defaults to "0". If the "servername" field is provided by BOOTP or DHCP, then that field is used in conjunction with other associated fields to contact the boot server in the Boot stage. However, if the "servername" field is not provided, then the "targetname" field is then used in the Discovery Service stage in conjunction with other associated fields. See rfc4173. e.g.:
root=iscsi:192.168.50.1::::iqn.2009-06.dracut:target0
If servername is an IPv6 address, it has to be put in brackets. e.g.:
root=iscsi:[2001:DB8::1]::::iqn.2009-06.dracut:target0
multiple netroot options allow setting up multiple iscsi disks. e.g.:
root=UUID=12424547 netroot=iscsi:192.168.50.1::::iqn.2009-06.dracut:target0 netroot=iscsi:192.168.50.1::::iqn.2009-06.dracut:target1
If servername is an IPv6 address, it has to be put in brackets. e.g.:
netroot=iscsi:[2001:DB8::1]::::iqn.2009-06.dracut:target0
iscsistart --help)
<param> will be passed as "--param <param>" to iscsistart. This parameter can be specified multiple times. e.g.:
"netroot=iscsi iscsi_firmware rd.iscsi.param=node.session.timeo.replacement_timeout=30"
will result in
iscsistart -b --param node.session.timeo.replacement_timeout=30
Try to connect to a FCoE SAN through the NIC specified by <interface> or <MAC> or EDD settings. For the second argument, currently only nodcb is supported. This parameter can be specified multiple times.
letters in the MAC-address must be lowercase!
rd.zfcp can be specified multiple times on the kernel command line. e.g.:
rd.zfcp=0.0.4000,0x5005076300C213e9,0x5022000000000000
rd.znet can be specified multiple times on the kernel command line. e.g.:
rd.znet=qeth,0.0.0600,0.0.0601,0.0.0602,layer2=1,portname=foo rd.znet=ctc,0.0.0600,0.0.0601,0.0.0602,protocol=bar
Set the path name of the kernel master key. e.g.:
masterkey=/etc/keys/kmk-trusted.blob
Set the type of the kernel master key. e.g.:
masterkeytype=trusted
Set the path name of the EVM key. e.g.:
evmkey=/etc/keys/evm-trusted.blob
Set the path name of the eCryptfs key. e.g.:
ecryptfskey=/etc/keys/ecryptfs-trusted.blob
Here is a list of options, which were used in dracut prior to version 008, and their new replacement.
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lsinitrd shows the contents of an initramfs image. if <image> is omitted, then lsinitrd uses the default image /boot/initramfs-<kernel version>.img.
The lsinitrd command is part of the dracut package and is available from https://dracut.wiki.kernel.org
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mkinitrd creates an initramfs image <initrd-image> for the kernel with version <kernel-version> by calling "dracut".
If a more fine grained control over the resulting image is needed, "dracut" should be called directly.
The mkinitrd command is part of the dracut package and is available from https://dracut.wiki.kernel.org
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