Bug#387780: initramfs-tools: power cut during update-initramfs leaves system unbootable

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sat, Sep 16, 2006 at 06:29:26PM +0200, Thiemo Nagel wrote:
> Package: initramfs-tools
> Version: 0.79
> Severity: important
> 
> 
> A power cut during update-initramfs may leave the system in an unbootable state as the old initrd.img is 
> overwritten, but the new initrd.img is not yet completed.  (This happened to me when my laptop battery ran empty.)  
> A simple fix would be to create the new initrd.img as a temporary file and move it to replace the old initrd.img 
> only after image creation has been finished.  That way, the chance to have an unbootable system after a power cut 
> would be significantly lower, restricted to situations in which the old initrd.img doesn't work anymore.

A better fix would be to always keep a copy of the old vmlinuz/initrd.img pair
or ramdisk including vmlinuz.

This would solve lot of problems of this kind, and always keep one or more
fallback to older kernels.

Friendly,

Sven Luther