Create an initramfs <image> for the kernel with the version <kernel version>.
If <kernel version> is omitted, then the version of the actual running
kernel is used. If <image> is omitted or empty, depending on bootloader
specification, the default location can be
/efi/<machine-id>/<kernel-version>/initrd,
/boot/<machine-id>/<kernel-version>/initrd,
/boot/efi/<machine-id>/<kernel-version>/initrd,
/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/initrd or
/boot/initramfs-<kernel-version>.img.
dracut creates an initial image used by the kernel for preloading the block
device modules (such as IDE, SCSI or RAID) which are needed to access the root
filesystem, mounting the root filesystem and booting into the real system.
At boot time, the kernel unpacks that archive into RAM disk, mounts and uses it
as initial root file system. All finding of the root device happens in this
early userspace.
Initramfs images are also called "initrd".
For a complete list of kernel command line options see dracut.cmdline(7).
If you are dropped to an emergency shell, while booting your initramfs,
the file /run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt is created, which can be saved to a
(to be mounted by hand) partition (usually /boot) or a USB stick.
Additional debugging info can be produced by adding rd.debug to the kernel
command line. /run/initramfs/rdsosreport.txt contains all logs and the output
of some tools. It should be attached to any report about dracut problems.
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, depending on bootloader specification, can be
/efi/<machine-id>
/<kernel-version>
/initrd,
/boot/<machine-id>
/<kernel-version>
/initrd,
/boot/efi/<machine-id>
/<kernel-version>
/initrd,
/lib/modules/<kernel-version>
/initrd or
/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.
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
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
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
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
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(7).
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”.
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.
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.
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”.
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.