Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Full disk encryption

[David W Noon <dwnoon@ntlworld.com>]

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On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:26:56 +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote about Re:
[gentoo-user] Re: Full disk encryption:

> On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:07:35 +0000, David W Noon wrote:
> 
> > > Why do you need e2fsprogs on an initramfs?  
> > 
> > One needs e2fsck to do a "preen" prior to mounting the required
> > volume(s).
> 
> Why not mount root read-only, just like in a non-initramfs system?
> 
> Any e2fsck commands will be run during the boot runlevel, before
> remounting root rw.

Unfortunately, the system does not work that way.  When running inside
an initramfs, one cannot load executable content from mount points --
only from within the initramfs.  So, while it is perfectly possible to
do "ls /mnt/root/sbin/e2fsck" (assuming the root partition has been
mounted ro as /mnt/root), it is not possible to load and execute that
program. [And, yes, I have adjusted the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH shell
variables to address the program and library directories on the mounted
root partition.] After performing a switch_root to the actual root
partition, this restriction is lifted.

When running without (or with the default) initramfs, the root
partition itself becomes the active filesystem, so loading programs
from /sbin or /bin and libraries from /lib works as expected.

This might be one of Dale's problems, if he was trying to use commands
from the root filesystem within the initramfs.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
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dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
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