Bug#602900: live-initramfs: bnx2 module cannot find firmware

[Stefan Goetz <stefan.goetz@cs.rwth-aachen.de>]

Package: live-initramfs
Version: 1.215.1-1grml.01
Severity: normal

I use a live initramfs for netbooting an installation system (FAI) on a DELL R710 server with Broadcom 5709C cards which depend on the bnx2 kernel module which in turn depends on bnx2 firmware. After including this firmware in the initrd and adding bnx2 to the list of modules to load, the module, after being loaded in the modules stage, reports that it cannot find the firmware although it is present.

The cause of this issue is that udev is not available when the module is loaded. This is because the module stage precedes the premount stage which starts udev.

My own workaround is to add a script to the premount stage which has the udev scripts as its pre-requisite and the modprobes the bnx2 module. This works, but it's a hack.

I think, udev should be started before module loading in general to fix this issue.

This issue is a duplicate of bug #578407 which was closed.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.6
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages live-initramfs depends on:
ii  busybox                   1:1.10.2-2     Tiny utilities for small and embed
ii  file                      4.26-1         Determines file type using "magic"
ii  initramfs-tools           0.97           tools for generating an initramfs
ii  sudo                      1.6.9p17-3     Provide limited super user privile
ii  udev                      0.125-7+lenny3 /dev/ and hotplug management daemo
ii  user-setup                1.23           Set up initial user and password

Versions of packages live-initramfs recommends:
pn  cryptsetup               <none>          (no description available)
pn  eject                    <none>          (no description available)
ii  rsync                    3.0.3-2         fast remote file copy program (lik
pn  uuid-runtime             <none>          (no description available)
ii  wget                     1.11.4-2+lenny2 retrieves files from the web

Versions of packages live-initramfs suggests:
pn  curlftpfs                     <none>     (no description available)
pn  genext2fs                     <none>     (no description available)
pn  httpfs2                       <none>     (no description available)
pn  loop-aes-utils                <none>     (no description available)
pn  mtd-tools                     <none>     (no description available)
pn  squashfs-tools                <none>     (no description available)
pn  unionfs-fuse                  <none>     (no description available)

-- no debconf information