Bug#600453: initramfs-tools: dist-upgrade lenny->squeeze mkinitramfs: failed

[maximilian attems <max@stro.at>]

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, kurt witschi wrote:

> trying to dist-upgrade my orion (arm) box form lenny to squeeze i got the following error:
> Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
> update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-2-orion5x
> mkinitramfs: failed to determine root device
> mkinitramfs: workaround is MODULES=most
> Error please report bug on initramfs-tools and include the output of 'mount'
> update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-2-orion5x
> dpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (--configure):
>  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> Processing triggers for python-support ...
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  linux-image-2.6.32-5-orion5x
>  linux-image-2.6-orion5x
>  initramfs-tools
> mount: / is busy
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I see.
 
> mount output: 
> ~$ mount
> tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
> proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
> procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
> udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
> tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
> devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
> rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
> tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,size=32m)
> /dev/sdb2 on /media/adata type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> /dev/sdb3 on /media/tbackupDrive type ext2 (rw,noatime)
> nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
> aufs on / type aufs (rw)
  ^^^
> rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)

this the line that confuses mkinitramfs could you post
cat /proc/mounts of the box, maybe it should parse that
if mount gives funny output.

mkinitramfs expects to find your root device there and thankfully
bailed out as it didn't find anything yet.
 
> Additional info:
> root is on a usb-flash-disk, in normal operation root is on an aufs,
> to prevent to many writes to the flash.
> for the dist-upgrade the box was booted without the bootarg
> aufs=tmpfs.
> I do not fully uderstand why root still is listed as aufs, but
> the writes do really hit the usb-disk (otherways dist-upgrade
> would have resulted in out of memory long ago).
> followed the url blow for the aufs-setup
> http://211.78.87.227/viewtopic.php?p=125219&sid=92ed65a36b73f123c79fb071e58d6025
> thank you very much for any help.
> ps: unsure if this should not have higher severety as rebooting now would 
> porbably make the system unbootable.

set to important as MODULES=dep is not default.
thanks for your report.