[gentoo-user] booting with an lvm2 root. How do I make a working initrd?

[gentoo-user] booting with an lvm2 root. How do I make a working initrd?

[Javier Ubillos]

Hi.

I'm trying to get my gentoo isntallation to work, but I'm just ending up 
pulling my hair out.

The setup I'm going for is a single disk, with two partitions

One 100MB partition for /boot
and the rest of the disk (~120GB) for LVM

I've used the standard gentoo installation handbook + "Gentoo LVM2 
installation" <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/lvm2.xml> + gentoo wiki 
"HOWTO Install Gentoo on an LVM2 root partition" 
<http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_on_an_LVM2_root_partition#Make_your_initrd>
and some random googeling

 From what I gather, I need an initrd image to boot with, so that it can 
load neccecary modules to be able to read the logical volumes.
I don't want to use genkernel, but I still want it to work.
The entry in the gentoo wiki is inkomplete (the links to the precompiled 
binaries are broken)

when I try to run
mkinitrd --preload md_mod --with=md_mod initrd-2.6.16-gentoo-r9 
2.6.16-gentoo-r9
I allways get
no temporary directory could be found
(I'm runniing this from the live cd)

In conclusion:
how do I get/make a working initrd so I can boot with my lvm2 root?
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Re: [gentoo-user] booting with an lvm2 root. How do I make a working initrd?

[Sascha Lucas]

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Javier Ubillos wrote:

> I don't want to use genkernel, but I still want it to work.

you realy should use genkernel.... it's much easier.

> mkinitrd --preload md_mod --with=md_mod initrd-2.6.16-gentoo-r9

well you should not use mkinitrd, if you refuse genkernel :-).
btw: md-mod is RAID (multiple devs), LVM is dm-mod (dev mapper).

> In conclusion:
> how do I get/make a working initrd so I can boot with my lvm2 root?

that's much work to do it your self.... start building ext2 images or 
cpio's with static busybox & lvm2 and write your own linuxrc (here you may 
cheat by looking into linuxrc from genkernel :-)). Don't forget to create 
dev-files and to include some modules.

Sascha.

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Re: [gentoo-user] booting with an lvm2 root. How do I make a working initrd?

[Jim Burwell]

Sascha Lucas wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Javier Ubillos wrote:
>
>> I don't want to use genkernel, but I still want it to work.
>
> you realy should use genkernel.... it's much easier.
>
>> mkinitrd --preload md_mod --with=md_mod initrd-2.6.16-gentoo-r9
>
> well you should not use mkinitrd, if you refuse genkernel :-).
> btw: md-mod is RAID (multiple devs), LVM is dm-mod (dev mapper).
>
>> In conclusion:
>> how do I get/make a working initrd so I can boot with my lvm2 root?
>
> that's much work to do it your self.... start building ext2 images or 
> cpio's with static busybox & lvm2 and write your own linuxrc (here you 
> may cheat by looking into linuxrc from genkernel :-)). Don't forget to 
> create dev-files and to include some modules.
>
> Sascha.
>

Yes.  What Sascha said.  I've had many a user (in #gentoo IRC) sneer at 
me for using Genkernel to produce a kernel + initramfs archive to boot 
up my RAID + LVM2 based system.  But it's far simpler than reinventing 
the wheel by creating all that is needed to bootstrap the RAID/LVM2 
setup (static bins, linuxrc script to start everything up, create device 
nodes, etc, etc).  I don't see much value in doing it myself when 
Genkernel already does it for me.

Also, you can do all the kernel customization you wish (within reason) 
even if you use Genkernel by using one of the --menu|x|g|config flags, 
and/or --oldconfig. 

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