On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 12:56:13PM -0600, Erik Andersen wrote:
> In 2.4.x when someone specifies "init=/bin/foo" to select an
> alternative binary to run instead of /sbin/init, argv[0] is not
> to the correct value.  This is a problem for programs such as
> busybox that multiplex applications based on the value of
> argv[0].  For example, even if you specify init=/bin/sh" on the
> kernel command line, busybox will still receive "/sbin/init" as
> argv[0], and will therefore run init rather than /bin/sh...
> 
> This problem was recently fixed in 2.6.x.  This patch applies
> the same fix to 2.4.x.

    I didn't know that got merged.  Great!

    Debian users running 2.6: go install busybox-static, then make a
link from /sbin/sh to /bin/busybox.  If something bad happens to your
file system or libc or something like that, you can still boot with
init=/sbin/sh and get a shell prompt and all the important utilities
as long as /bin/busybox is okay.  It's a nice failsafe, especially
when testing kernels or running an unstable distribution.

   If this patch gets merged in 2.4, 2.4 users will be able to do this
too.

-- 
Joseph Fannin
jhf@rivenstone.net

"That's all I have to say about that." -- Forrest Gump.