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   dracut    ( 8 )

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Использование (Usage)

To create a initramfs image, the most simple command is:

# dracut

This will generate a general purpose initramfs image, with all possible functionality resulting of the combination of the installed dracut modules and system tools. The image is /boot/initramfs-<kernel version>.img and contains the kernel modules of the currently active kernel with version <kernel version>.

If the initramfs image already exists, dracut will display an error message, and to overwrite the existing image, you have to use the --force option.

# dracut --force

If you want to specify another filename for the resulting image you would issue a command like:

# dracut foobar.img

To generate an image for a specific kernel version, the command would be:

# dracut foobar.img 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20

A shortcut to generate the image at the default location for a specific kernel version is:

# dracut --kver 2.6.40-1.rc5.f20

If you want to create lighter, smaller initramfs images, you may want to specify the --hostonly or -H option. Using this option, the resulting image will contain only those dracut modules, kernel modules and filesystems, which are needed to boot this specific machine. This has the drawback, that you can't put the disk on another controller or machine, and that you can't switch to another root filesystem, without recreating the initramfs image. The usage of the --hostonly option is only for experts and you will have to keep the broken pieces. At least keep a copy of a general purpose image (and corresponding kernel) as a fallback to rescue your system.

Inspecting the Contents To see the contents of the image created by dracut, you can use the lsinitrd tool.

# lsinitrd | less

To display the contents of a file in the initramfs also use the lsinitrd tool:

# lsinitrd -f /etc/ld.so.conf include ld.so.conf.d/*.conf

Adding dracut Modules Some dracut modules are turned off by default and have to be activated manually. You can do this by adding the dracut modules to the configuration file /etc/dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf. See dracut.conf(5). You can also add dracut modules on the command line by using the -a or --add option:

# dracut --add module initramfs-module.img

To see a list of available dracut modules, use the --list-modules option:

# dracut --list-modules

Omitting dracut Modules Sometimes you don't want a dracut module to be included for reasons of speed, size or functionality. To do this, either specify the omit_dracutmodules variable in the dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf configuration file (see dracut.conf(5)), or use the -o or --omit option on the command line:

# dracut -o "multipath lvm" no-multipath-lvm.img

Adding Kernel Modules If you need a special kernel module in the initramfs, which is not automatically picked up by dracut, you have the use the --add-drivers option on the command line or the drivers variable in the /etc/dracut.conf or /etc/dracut.conf.d/myconf.conf configuration file (see dracut.conf(5)):

# dracut --add-drivers mymod initramfs-with-mymod.img

Boot parameters An initramfs generated without the "hostonly" mode, does not contain any system configuration files (except for some special exceptions), so the configuration has to be done on the kernel command line. With this flexibility, you can easily boot from a changed root partition, without the need to recompile the initramfs image. So, you could completely change your root partition (move it inside a md raid with encryption and LVM on top), as long as you specify the correct filesystem LABEL or UUID on the kernel command line for your root device, dracut will find it and boot from it.

The kernel command line can also be provided by the dhcp server with the root-path option. See the section called 'Network Boot'.

For a full reference of all kernel command line parameters, see dracut.cmdline(5).

To get a quick start for the suitable kernel command line on your system, use the --print-cmdline option:

# dracut --print-cmdline root=UUID=8b8b6f91-95c7-4da2-831b-171e12179081 rootflags=rw,relatime,discard,data=ordered rootfstype=ext4

Specifying the root Device This is the only option dracut really needs to boot from your root partition. Because your root partition can live in various environments, there are a lot of formats for the root= option. The most basic one is root=<path to device node>:

root=/dev/sda2

Because device node names can change, dependent on the drive ordering, you are encouraged to use the filesystem identifier (UUID) or filesystem label (LABEL) to specify your root partition:

root=UUID=19e9dda3-5a38-484d-a9b0-fa6b067d0331

or

root=LABEL=myrootpartitionlabel

To see all UUIDs or LABELs on your system, do:

# ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

or

# ls -l /dev/disk/by-label

If your root partition is on the network see the section called 'Network Boot'.

Keyboard Settings If you have to input passwords for encrypted disk volumes, you might want to set the keyboard layout and specify a display font.

A typical german kernel command line would contain:

rd.vconsole.font=eurlatgr rd.vconsole.keymap=de-latin1-nodeadkeys rd.locale.LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

Setting these options can override the setting stored on your system, if you use a modern init system, like systemd.

Blacklisting Kernel Modules Sometimes it is required to prevent the automatic kernel module loading of a specific kernel module. To do this, just add rd.blacklist=<kernel module name>, with <kernel module name> not containing the .ko suffix, to the kernel command line. For example:

rd.driver.blacklist=mptsas rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau

The option can be specified multiple times on the kernel command line.

Speeding up the Boot Process If you want to speed up the boot process, you can specify as much information for dracut on the kernel command as possible. For example, you can tell dracut, that you root partition is not on a LVM volume or not on a raid partition, or that it lives inside a specific crypto LUKS encrypted volume. By default, dracut searches everywhere. A typical dracut kernel command line for a plain primary or logical partition would contain:

rd.luks=0 rd.lvm=0 rd.md=0 rd.dm=0

This turns off every automatic assembly of LVM, MD raids, DM raids and crypto LUKS.

Of course, you could also omit the dracut modules in the initramfs creation process, but then you would lose the possibility to turn it on on demand.

Injecting custom Files To add your own files to the initramfs image, you have several possibilities.

The --include option let you specify a source path and a target path. For example

# dracut --include cmdline-preset /etc/cmdline.d/mycmdline.conf initramfs-cmdline-pre.img

will create an initramfs image, where the file cmdline-preset will be copied inside the initramfs to /etc/cmdline.d/mycmdline.conf. --include can only be specified once.

# mkdir -p rd.live.overlay/etc/cmdline.d # mkdir -p rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d # echo "ip=dhcp" >> rd.live.overlay/etc/cmdline.d/mycmdline.conf # echo export FOO=testtest >> rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d/testvar.conf # echo export BAR=testtest >> rd.live.overlay/etc/conf.d/testvar.conf # tree rd.live.overlay/ rd.live.overlay/ `-- etc |-- cmdline.d | `-- mycmdline.conf `-- conf.d `-- testvar.conf

# dracut --include rd.live.overlay / initramfs-rd.live.overlay.img

This will put the contents of the rd.live.overlay directory into the root of the initramfs image.

The --install option let you specify several files, which will get installed in the initramfs image at the same location, as they are present on initramfs creation time.

# dracut --install 'strace fsck.ext3 ssh' initramfs-dbg.img

This will create an initramfs with the strace, fsck.ext3 and ssh executables, together with the libraries needed to start those. The --install option can be specified multiple times.

Network Boot If your root partition is on a network drive, you have to have the network dracut modules installed to create a network aware initramfs image.

If you specify ip=dhcp on the kernel command line, then dracut asks a dhcp server about the ip address for the machine. The dhcp server can also serve an additional root-path, which will set the root device for dracut. With this mechanism, you have static configuration on your client machine and a centralized boot configuration on your TFTP/DHCP server. If you can't pass a kernel command line, then you can inject /etc/cmdline.d/mycmdline.conf, with a method described in the section called 'Injecting custom Files'.

Reducing the Image Size To reduce the size of the initramfs, you should create it with by omitting all dracut modules, which you know, you don't need to boot the machine.

You can also specify the exact dracut and kernel modules to produce a very tiny initramfs image.

For example for a NFS image, you would do:

# dracut -m "nfs network base" initramfs-nfs-only.img

Then you would boot from this image with your target machine and reduce the size once more by creating it on the target machine with the --host-only option:

# dracut -m "nfs network base" --host-only initramfs-nfs-host-only.img

This will reduce the size of the initramfs image significantly.