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Re: Minimum initrd to satisfy init



On Sat, 04 Nov 2006, Name Withheld wrote:

> Can anyone tell me,  or point me towards something that will explain what 
> is the minimum I need to put into an initrd image to satisfy init and 
> complete the boot process?

so i guess you are using initrd-tools
it's support for nfs root is very limited.
you want to try initramfs-tools.
 
> I have a kernel that I can load into an old i386, that fails at the point 
> where it tries to open /dev/console, and fails to execute /sbin/init.
> 
> I'm attempting to set root as /dev/NFS, and have successfully mounted root 
> on a remote bootp server,  but none of the nodes in /dev have been set up, 
> and apparently the kernel can not execute the init scripts that I've put in 
> the bootp server directory that my old i386 has mounted as root.
> 
> NetBSD has a document 
> (http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/) that explains the 
> server side, and The Linux Documentation Project has a document (which I 
> just discovered) pointing out that I could copy an existing /dev directory 
> using -R. (Which I will try next)(onto a root floppy)
> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/buildroot.html
> also
> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-Root-Client-mini-HOWTO/index.html
> 
> That document also discusses a minimum inittab, and I've tried something 
> similar without success, obviously because of the missing /dev/console 
> node. I can't really do a 'mknod' on a running kernel, because it screws up 
> the existing node??
> 
> A Linux Journal article by Richard Ferri,
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5465
> (which I also just discovered) explains what I'm trying to do, and I will 
> have to study further. .
> 
> The obsolete i386 which I am attempting to turn into a Nat/gateway/firewall 
> (again) is not capable of booting from CDROM.
> 
> Thanks for reading. . .
> 
-- 
maks



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