[gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[John Covici]

Hi.  I am having problems running dracut 0.51-r2 and 0.50-r2.  The
problem is that I have two  install_items lines like this
install_items+= /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
install_items+= /etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service

and dracut says permission denied on both of them.  They are owned by
root and are world readable and containing directories look good.  I
even did an strace, but did not find where it tried to open those
files.  I have been using dracut for years and never had this problem
till recent versions.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[John Covici]

I have some more information.   If I  chmod 777 on
/etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf  it says options command not found, options
is the first word in the file which is
options zfs zfs_arc_max=0x100000000

Now if I put the files together on one line I get
/etc/dracut.conf:install_items+= "/etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
/etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service"

dracut: WARNING: <key>+=" <values> ": <values> should have surrounding
white spaces!
dracut: WARNING: This will lead to unwanted side effects! Please fix
the configuration file.

/etc/dracut.conf: line 54: /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
/etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service: No such file or
directory

It seems to be treating it as one file.  If I separate the files into
two install_items lines, I get what I described in the original
message.

On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 09:39:38 -0500,
John Covici wrote:
> 
> Hi.  I am having problems running dracut 0.51-r2 and 0.50-r2.  The
> problem is that I have two  install_items lines like this
> install_items+= /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
> install_items+= /etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service
> 
> and dracut says permission denied on both of them.  They are owned by
> root and are world readable and containing directories look good.  I
> even did an strace, but did not find where it tried to open those
> files.  I have been using dracut for years and never had this problem
> till recent versions.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
> 
> -- 
> Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
> How do
> you spend it?
> 
>          John Covici wb2una
>          covici@ccs.covici.com
> 

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 9:39 AM John Covici <covici@ccs.covici.com> wrote:
>
> Hi.  I am having problems running dracut 0.51-r2 and 0.50-r2.  The
> problem is that I have two  install_items lines like this
> install_items+= /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
> install_items+= /etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service
>

I'd keep the two separate lines and add --debug to the command line
(and anything else verbosity-related, consider strace if that doesn't
give you clues).  Your issue is with generation and not boot (right
now), so just focus on the actual build process.

Haven't seen this issue and will take a look as I run dracut+zfs, but
any debugging output you can get out of this will probably help.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[John Covici]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 12:19:42 -0500,
Rich Freeman wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 9:39 AM John Covici <covici@ccs.covici.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi.  I am having problems running dracut 0.51-r2 and 0.50-r2.  The
> > problem is that I have two  install_items lines like this
> > install_items+= /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
> > install_items+= /etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service
> >
> 
> I'd keep the two separate lines and add --debug to the command line
> (and anything else verbosity-related, consider strace if that doesn't
> give you clues).  Your issue is with generation and not boot (right
> now), so just focus on the actual build process.
> 
> Haven't seen this issue and will take a look as I run dracut+zfs, but
> any debugging output you can get out of this will probably help.

I did a debug and even the highest log level, but this is so early in
the process that was not much to go on.  I also did an strace, but
could not find where it was trying to open the files in question --
lots of child processes, so maybe I missed it -- I will have to see if
there is a way to have strace look at those.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] problems with dracut

[John Covici]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2021 12:19:42 -0500,
Rich Freeman wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 9:39 AM John Covici <covici@ccs.covici.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi.  I am having problems running dracut 0.51-r2 and 0.50-r2.  The
> > problem is that I have two  install_items lines like this
> > install_items+= /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf
> > install_items+= /etc/systemd/system/initrd-switch-root.service
> >
> 
> I'd keep the two separate lines and add --debug to the command line
> (and anything else verbosity-related, consider strace if that doesn't
> give you clues).  Your issue is with generation and not boot (right
> now), so just focus on the actual build process.
> 
> Haven't seen this issue and will take a look as I run dracut+zfs, but
> any debugging output you can get out of this will probably help.
> 

I got private mail from someone -- I also posted to the initramfs
mailing list, and he suggested to do --install followed by the string
from the command line and dracut took it!  Have not tried to reboot
with that kernel yet, but I thought I'd put this out in case someone
else runs into this.

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         covici@ccs.covici.com