Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: early boot failure, not sure how to diagnose

[Steven Lembark <lembark@wrkhors.com>]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2013 22:08:50 +1000
Daiajo Tibdixious <daiajo@gmail.com> wrote:

> > What happens if you add init=/bin/bash ?  Does /that/ get you a

It is also easy to build a q&d initrd with nothing more than 
busybox and something like:

    #!/bin/busybox sh

    /bin/busybox --install -s;

    mkdir /proc;
    mkdir /sys;

    mount /proc;
    mount /sys;

    lvm vgscan -v;
    lvm vgchange -v -a y;

    exec /bin/busybox 'sh';

At that point you can poke around with the busybox util's and
see what is going on. If you use RAID then make a static copy 
of mdadm; ditto "lvm" if you use that. Go through the steps you
expect to work by hand and see what happens. At that point you
can get more specific error messages without having them all
stream by on the screeen.

You can build the initrd from a single directory with nothing
more than an /etc/fstab, busybox, mdadm, lvm in the bin dir,
and /dev populated with null, zero, console, tty, and the 
sd* devices you really have on the device. Cpio+gzip it into
something like /boot/rescue.cpio.gz and use it with initrd.

-- 
Steven Lembark                                           3646 Flora Pl
Workhorse Computing                                 St Louis, MO 63110
lembark@wrkhors.com                                    +1 888 359 3508