[gentoo-dev] Initrd

[gentoo-dev] Initrd

[Paulo Goncalves]

I installed Gentoo Linux on a scsi (aic7xx) machine
with Windows 2000. I have two HD, one for each OS.

I don't want to install Grub or Lilo on the HD.
My goal was to boot Linux via a floppy and keep the
Win 2000 boot loader.

I am having a hard time to boot. Need to create
the initrd file.

Do you have a utility to create the initrd in your
distribution?

Do you have a procedure to create it?

Thanks a lot,
Paulo





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Re: [gentoo-dev] Initrd

[Sylvain]

Hello !

I am not sure you have to use an initrd file.
You just have to put the kernel with right options on a floppy.
Just change the kernel option with rdev.


sylvain


Le Wed, 23 Oct 2002 15:49:23 -0500
"Paulo Goncalves" <paulo404a@hotmail.com> a écrit:

> I installed Gentoo Linux on a scsi (aic7xx) machine
> with Windows 2000. I have two HD, one for each OS.
> 
> I don't want to install Grub or Lilo on the HD.
> My goal was to boot Linux via a floppy and keep the
> Win 2000 boot loader.
> 
> I am having a hard time to boot. Need to create
> the initrd file.
> 
> Do you have a utility to create the initrd in your
> distribution?
> 
> Do you have a procedure to create it?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Paulo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Initrd

[Christian Skarby]

>> I don't want to install Grub or Lilo on the HD.
>> My goal was to boot Linux via a floppy and keep the
>> Win 2000 boot loader.

What about this?

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html

- use grub or lilo, but install it on a partition instead of the MBR

a while since I did it, but as far as I remember it worked out fine

Christian

[gentoo-dev] initrd

[Chris PeBenito]

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For the new SELinux API in 2.6, it is required that the SELinux policy
is loaded by initrd.  We don't have a mkinitrd in portage.  I could add
a Gentoo-fixed RedHat mkinitrd, but I'd prefer not to, since all I have
to do in the initrd is 3 commands (and I don't want to maintain a
mkinitrd ebuild either).  However, there is a static shell in the RedHat
mkinitrd package (nash) that is compiled with dietlibc which I do want,
because its tiny, and made to run in a initrd.

Would it be acceptable to create something like a "mkpolicyinitrd"
package that pulls in the RH src rpm, and compiles nash out of it, and
adds in my own mkinitrd script?  I could also put the mkinitrd in our
selinux-base-policy ebuild, and just create a nash ebuild.

I would rather have a ebuild just for nash.  Is there any preference, or
other suggestions?

-- 
Chris PeBenito
<pebenito@gentoo.org>
Developer, SELinux
Hardened Gentoo Linux
 
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xE6AF9243
Key fingerprint = B0E6 877A 883F A57A 8E6A  CB00 BC8E E42D E6AF 9243

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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Robin H.Johnson]

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On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 10:55:36AM -0500, Chris PeBenito wrote:
> For the new SELinux API in 2.6, it is required that the SELinux policy
> is loaded by initrd.  We don't have a mkinitrd in portage.  I could add
> a Gentoo-fixed RedHat mkinitrd, but I'd prefer not to, since all I have
> to do in the initrd is 3 commands (and I don't want to maintain a
> mkinitrd ebuild either).  However, there is a static shell in the RedHat
> mkinitrd package (nash) that is compiled with dietlibc which I do want,
> because its tiny, and made to run in a initrd.
> 
> Would it be acceptable to create something like a "mkpolicyinitrd"
> package that pulls in the RH src rpm, and compiles nash out of it, and
> adds in my own mkinitrd script?  I could also put the mkinitrd in our
> selinux-base-policy ebuild, and just create a nash ebuild.
> 
> I would rather have a ebuild just for nash.  Is there any preference, or
> other suggestions?
I started on some of this before, when I almost needed an initrd for
some boxes (due to crappy hardware, i ended up buying some 3ware raid
controllers instead).

Based on how redhat packages it, I'd suggest a mkinitrd package that
pulls in their srpm (from their RawHide sources as the latest contains a
number of fixed wrt lvm and other things), and builds /sbin/mkinitrd,
/sbin/nash, /sbin/grubby.

As you note that you are not willing to maintain the mkinitrd ebuild, if
you do put it in, I'm willing to maintain it.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
E-Mail     : robbat2@orbis-terrarum.net
Home Page  : http://www.orbis-terrarum.net/?l=people.robbat2
ICQ#       : 30269588 or 41961639
GnuPG FP   : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED  F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85

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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Martin Schlemmer]

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On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 19:12, Robin H.Johnson wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 10:55:36AM -0500, Chris PeBenito wrote:
> > For the new SELinux API in 2.6, it is required that the SELinux policy
> > is loaded by initrd.  We don't have a mkinitrd in portage.  I could add
> > a Gentoo-fixed RedHat mkinitrd, but I'd prefer not to, since all I have
> > to do in the initrd is 3 commands (and I don't want to maintain a
> > mkinitrd ebuild either).  However, there is a static shell in the RedHat
> > mkinitrd package (nash) that is compiled with dietlibc which I do want,
> > because its tiny, and made to run in a initrd.
> > 
> > Would it be acceptable to create something like a "mkpolicyinitrd"
> > package that pulls in the RH src rpm, and compiles nash out of it, and
> > adds in my own mkinitrd script?  I could also put the mkinitrd in our
> > selinux-base-policy ebuild, and just create a nash ebuild.
> > 
> > I would rather have a ebuild just for nash.  Is there any preference, or
> > other suggestions?
> I started on some of this before, when I almost needed an initrd for
> some boxes (due to crappy hardware, i ended up buying some 3ware raid
> controllers instead).
> 
> Based on how redhat packages it, I'd suggest a mkinitrd package that
> pulls in their srpm (from their RawHide sources as the latest contains a
> number of fixed wrt lvm and other things), and builds /sbin/mkinitrd,
> /sbin/nash, /sbin/grubby.
> 
> As you note that you are not willing to maintain the mkinitrd ebuild, if
> you do put it in, I'm willing to maintain it.

Is it not possible to use sash rather than nash ?


-- 

Martin Schlemmer
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop/System Team Developer
Cape Town, South Africa



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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Chris PeBenito]

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On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 15:25, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> Is it not possible to use sash rather than nash ?

No, as sash won't execute scripts.  Nash is more than just a static
shell, it also has useful stuff for initrd's like mount and pivot_root
built in.

-- 
Chris PeBenito
<pebenito@gentoo.org>
Developer, SELinux
Hardened Gentoo Linux
 
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xE6AF9243
Key fingerprint = B0E6 877A 883F A57A 8E6A  CB00 BC8E E42D E6AF 9243

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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Martin Schlemmer]

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On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 22:50, Chris PeBenito wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 15:25, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> > Is it not possible to use sash rather than nash ?
> 
> No, as sash won't execute scripts.  Nash is more than just a static
> shell, it also has useful stuff for initrd's like mount and pivot_root
> built in.

Right, silly me ;)


-- 

Martin Schlemmer
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop/System Team Developer
Cape Town, South Africa



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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Chris PeBenito]

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Well I've been playing with initrd all day, and I came to the conclusion
that its not worth the effort try to create an in-house mkinitrd (at
least for me to do it).  So I'll put it in as sys-apps/mkinitrd, and add
an optional selinux patch to it.  I pulled it myself from the rawhide
src rpm I got from rpmfind.net.  What is the preferred/correct way of
handling this?  Should I have the ebuild pull the src.rpm and do the
rpm2targz magic in src_unpack, or should I just extract the tarball from
it myself, and put it on distfiles?

On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 12:12, Robin H.Johnson wrote:
> I started on some of this before, when I almost needed an initrd for
> some boxes (due to crappy hardware, i ended up buying some 3ware raid
> controllers instead).
> 
> Based on how redhat packages it, I'd suggest a mkinitrd package that
> pulls in their srpm (from their RawHide sources as the latest contains a
> number of fixed wrt lvm and other things), and builds /sbin/mkinitrd,
> /sbin/nash, /sbin/grubby.
> 
> As you note that you are not willing to maintain the mkinitrd ebuild, if
> you do put it in, I'm willing to maintain it.
-- 
Chris PeBenito
<pebenito@gentoo.org>
Developer, SELinux
Hardened Gentoo Linux
 
Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xE6AF9243
Key fingerprint = B0E6 877A 883F A57A 8E6A  CB00 BC8E E42D E6AF 9243

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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Robin H.Johnson]

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On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 12:12:11AM -0500, Chris PeBenito wrote:
> Well I've been playing with initrd all day, and I came to the
> conclusion that its not worth the effort try to create an in-house
> mkinitrd (at least for me to do it).  
That's what led me to buying 3ware controllers myself.

> So I'll put it in as sys-apps/mkinitrd, and add an optional selinux
> patch to it. I pulled it myself from the rawhide src rpm I got from
> rpmfind.net. What is the preferred/correct way of handling this?
> Should I have the ebuild pull the src.rpm and do the rpm2targz magic
> in src_unpack, or should I just extract the tarball from it myself,
> and put it on distfiles?
The srpm goes into the SRC_URI, and there is an eclass that does all
the rpm2tgz magic for you iirc.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
E-Mail     : robbat2@orbis-terrarum.net
Home Page  : http://www.orbis-terrarum.net/?l=people.robbat2
ICQ#       : 30269588 or 41961639
GnuPG FP   : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED  F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85

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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Martin Schlemmer]

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On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 07:36, Robin H.Johnson wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 12:12:11AM -0500, Chris PeBenito wrote:
> > Well I've been playing with initrd all day, and I came to the
> > conclusion that its not worth the effort try to create an in-house
> > mkinitrd (at least for me to do it).  
> That's what led me to buying 3ware controllers myself.
> 
> > So I'll put it in as sys-apps/mkinitrd, and add an optional selinux
> > patch to it. I pulled it myself from the rawhide src rpm I got from
> > rpmfind.net. What is the preferred/correct way of handling this?
> > Should I have the ebuild pull the src.rpm and do the rpm2targz magic
> > in src_unpack, or should I just extract the tarball from it myself,
> > and put it on distfiles?
> The srpm goes into the SRC_URI, and there is an eclass that does all
> the rpm2tgz magic for you iirc.

This is (IMHO) not suitable for Rawhide, as it changes too much.  Do
what I did with elfutils, and rpm2targz it, tar -zxf that, and then
just drop the tarball (only the source) in local-distfiles.


Cheers,

-- 

Martin Schlemmer
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop/System Team Developer
Cape Town, South Africa



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Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Aron Griffis]

Dunno if this is helpful, but I make initrds all the time without a
special tool.  This is the applicable snippet from the script that I
use.

  echo Calculating size of root disk
  size=$(( $(du -s ${target} | cut -f1) * 11 / 10 ))
  echo Building root disk of ${size}k
  dd if=/dev/zero of=initrd.img bs=1k count=${size}     || exit 1
  mke2fs -F initrd.img                                  || exit 1
  mkdir -p initrd
  mount initrd.img initrd -o loop                       || exit 1
  cp -a ${target}/* initrd
  umount initrd                                         || exit 1
  gzip -f -9 initrd.img                                 || exit 1

Aron

--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] initrd

[Grant Goodyear]

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Um, doesn't genkernel build an initrd?  I'm guessing that one could just
steal that code for one's own nefarious purposes.
-- 
Grant Goodyear <g2boojum@gentoo.org>

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