Bug#781002: initramfs-tools: no kernel modules are insert into initrd

[maximilian attems <maks@stro.at>]

On Wed, Apr 01, 2015 at 06:10:05PM -0700, Marc MERLIN wrote:
> Could I make a few suggestions while we're at it?
> 1) I sometimes build an initrd for a kernel I haven't installed yet. Yes,
> it's a mistake, but it happily succeeds and creates an initrd without any
> modules which then creates a non booting system.
> => initramfs should abort if its generated /lib/modules/kernel is empty

I thought this was caught.
 
> 2) initramfs creates a temporary directory where it puts everything, and
> then deletes it before you can inspect it for debugging.
> => Add a --debug that leaves that directory behind for inspection.
> Right now I have to unpack the initrd image which is more and more of a
> pain as it becomes a bundled binary of concatenated cpio images and god
> knows what.

-k :P
as usual read the nice man mkinitramfs (;
 
> 3) document the binwalk method of unpacking initrd to debug if needed
> (somewhere in the manpage):
> http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/163346/why-is-it-that-my-initrd-only-has-one-directory-namely-kernel
> .
> Or for the archives:
> legolas [mc]# binwalk initrd.img
> pick up the offset of the 2nd initrd image, and unpack like so:
> legolas [mc]# cd subdir; dd if=../initrd.img bs=21136 skip=1 | gunzip |
> cpio -idv

lsinitramfs shows you the content.

sunny greetings,

-- 
maks