dracut-0.5

What's new in dracut-0.5:
=========================

- more generic (all plymouth modules, all keyboards, all console fonts)
- more kernel command line parameters (see also man dracut(8))
- a helper tool, which generates the kernel command line (dracut-gencmdline)

for my machine this looks like this:

# /sbin/dracut-gencmdline
rd_DM_UUID=nvidia_dddhfead rd_LUKS_UUID=luks-227fe0ce-7e8c-453a-823f-d5bf34ca1da3 rd_LVM_VG=VolGroup00 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=de-latin1 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 LANG=en_US.UTF-8

If you have Fedora and encrypted partitions you should at least set "KEYTABLE" to have the correct keyboard setting.

rd_DM_UUID, rd_LUKS_UUID, rd_MD_UUID help you, if dracut does more than you want in its automatic mode. So if you want to be more specific on what dracut is allowed to assemble, uncrypt etc. just specify the exact parameters.

For those with an Intel fake software raid onboard (imsm/isw), you might not want MD handle those, but fallback to the old behaviour with DM. To do so add rd_NO_MDIMSM to the kernel command line.

Debugging
=========

Create your image with the debug module:

# dracut -a debug /boot/test-$(uname -r) $(uname -r)

Add "rdshell" to the kernel command line, remove "rhgb" and "quiet" and boot the image.

Once you are dropped to a shell do:

# dmesg|grep dracut

Add the output and your kernel command line to the bug report.

see also: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Dracut/Debugging

New kernel command line parameters:
===================================

I18N
e.g. LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16
KEYTABLE=de-latin1-nodeadkeys

KEYBOARDTYPE=sun|pc
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/keyboard in the initramfs

KEYTABLE=<keytable filename>
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/keyboard in the initramfs

SYSFONT= Console font
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/i18n in the initramfs

SYSFONTACM= Unicode font map
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/i18n in the initramfs

UNIMAP= Unicode font map
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/i18n in the initramfs

LANG=<locale>
will be written to /etc/sysconfig/i18n in the initramfs

Bootsplash - plymouth
rd_plytheme=<theme name>
specify the plymouth bootsplash theme (fallback is text)

LVM
rd_NO_LVM
disable LVM detection

rd_LVM_VG=<volume group name>
only activate the volume groups with the given name

crypto LUKS
rd_NO_LUKS
disable crypto LUKS detection

rd_LUKS_UUID=<luks uuid>
only activate the LUKS partitions with the given UUID

MD
rd_NO_MD
disable MD RAID detection

rd_NO_MDIMSM
no MD RAID for imsm/isw raids, use dmraid instead

rd_MD_UUID=<md uuid>
only activate the raid sets with the given UUID

DMRAID
rd_NO_DM
disable DM RAID detection

rd_DM_UUID=<dmraid uuid>
only activate the raid sets with the given UUID
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[snip]

Hmmm, requiring/expecting this much in the way of kernel parameters in the default case feels like it has a likelihood of hitting architecture-specific limits on command line size. I know that's been a problem in a lot of cases on s390 in the past.

I wonder if its worth supporting reading these first from a file "in the initramfs"[1] and then letting /proc/cmdline act as overrides of that ala the way the s390 people have historically done .parm files[2].

Jeremy

[1] It doesn't actually need to be in the packaged initramfs -- we could generate a host-specific file that's added as a second initramfs via the bootloader config. dracut doesn't need to know its from a second file but that seems like it would be straight-forward enough and help the problem. It also could be used for things like keeping passwords out of the kernel command line
[2] I can't believe I'm actually suggesting following something s390 has done :-)
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Is it still valid problem? http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/1/18/55

Karel

 Karel Zak  <[email protected]>
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Boot loaders still have limits

Jeremy
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