Bug#420806: initramfs-tools incorrectly attempting to boot from usb drive rather than scsi
Package: initramfs-tools
Version: 0.85g
Severity: important
With the currently distributed initramfs-tools configuration specifically in /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hook-functions causes an initrd to be generated which results in dropping to the initrd busybox shell. After some investigation it has become apparent that this is due to a USB drive connected for backups and the fact that this system boots from a local scsi raid. This may be a side effect of the way usb drives are not recognized as being different from scsi drives however is inappropriate behavior for any server.
I have found that making the following configuration changes to /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hook-functions cause the system to function appropriately.
# Dont need usb in initrd
#for x in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*; do
# if [ -e "${x}/modalias" ]; then
# manual_add_modules $(cat "${x}/modalias")
# fi
#done
...
# for x in ehci-hcd ohci-hcd uhci-hcd usbhid usb-storage ext2 \
for x in ext2 \
I also believe that moving the scsi module load before the usb module load might resolve this issue however because I have a production server that requires scheduled downtime I have not been able to test this. If this is an effictive fix this should also allow the system to not fail in any case where a user is actually trying to boot from usb on a desktop system since they are more likely to have ide drives while on a server this will likely be a continuing problem as it is not possible to physically access the machine to remove usb devices for booting.
Another possible solution would be to treat usb drives differently from scsi drives, perhaps create a udX# device class and leave the sdX# class for real scsi, however that is probably too much to ask.
Regards,
Ian Corbett
-- Package-specific info:
-- /proc/cmdline
root=/dev/sda1 ro
-- /proc/filesystems
cramfs
ext3
xfs
-- lsmod
Module Size Used by
tcp_diag 1888 0
inet_diag 11208 5 tcp_diag
ipv6 225984 149
bonding 71528 0
xfs 475800 4
tsdev 7520 0
usb_storage 71840 1
ide_core 110504 1 usb_storage
floppy 53156 0
psmouse 35016 0
parport_pc 32132 0
parport 33256 1 parport_pc
rtc 12372 0
ohci_hcd 18276 0
i2c_piix4 8140 0
usbcore 112644 3 usb_storage,ohci_hcd
i2c_core 19680 1 i2c_piix4
pcspkr 3072 0
shpchp 33024 0
pci_hotplug 28704 1 shpchp
serio_raw 6660 0
sworks_agp 9152 0
agpgart 29896 1 sworks_agp
sg 31292 0
evdev 9088 0
sr_mod 15876 0
cdrom 32544 1 sr_mod
ext3 119240 2
jbd 52456 1 ext3
mbcache 8356 1 ext3
dm_mirror 19152 0
dm_snapshot 15552 0
dm_mod 50232 11 dm_mirror,dm_snapshot
sd_mod 19040 8
aic7xxx 150932 0
scsi_transport_spi 22336 1 aic7xxx
e100 32232 0
mii 5344 1 e100
aacraid 51424 4
scsi_mod 124168 7 usb_storage,sg,sr_mod,sd_mod,aic7xxx,scsi_transport_spi,aacraid
thermal 13608 0
processor 28840 1 thermal
fan 4804 0
-- kernel-img.conf
# Kernel Image management overrides
# See kernel-img.conf(5) for details
do_symlinks = Yes
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Versions of packages initramfs-tools depends on:
ii busybox 1:1.1.3-4 Tiny utilities for small and embed
ii cpio 2.7-1 GNU cpio -- a program to manage ar
ii klibc-utils 1.4.34-1 small statically-linked utilities
ii module-init-tools 3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo
ii udev 0.105-4 /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
initramfs-tools recommends no packages.
-- no debconf information
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