From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262617AbVA0NfS (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:35:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262618AbVA0NfS (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:35:18 -0500 Received: from main.uucpssh.org ([212.27.33.224]:48038 "EHLO main.uucpssh.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262617AbVA0NfK (ORCPT ); Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:35:10 -0500 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: initrd / initramfs - root*,ro,rw parameters From: syrius.ml@no-log.org Message-ID: <87ekg7dow2.87d5vrdow2@87brbbdow2.message.id> Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:33:43 +0100 User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, It seems a lot of initrd images expect to find the final root filesystem device in the root= boot parameter while Documentation/initrd.txt states root should be set to /dev/ram0. I'm not sure, but it seems this patch introduced in 2.6.11-rc1 [PATCH] init/initramfs.c: make unpack_to_rootfs static made root=/dev/ram0 mandatory. And initrd images that expect people to set their root boot parameter to the final device don't work anymore. It seems logical to me, as Documentation/kernel-parameters states ro, rw, root, rootflags, rootdelay and rootfstype are kernel start-up parameters. And in the case of using a loaded-into-dev-ram0 initrd those parameters apply to /dev/ram0. It's the initrd's job to define new parameters it will use to mount the final root filesystem with. (for ex: pivot_root=, pivot_root_rw, pivot_root_ro, pivot_root_flags, pivot_root_fstype and possibly pivot_root_delay) (for sure i'm not considering the old deprecated root_change method nor devfs) Is it correct ? I'd like to hear maintainers' opinions about it. >>From Documentation/initrd.txt: Finally, you have to boot the kernel and load initrd. Almost all Linux boot loaders support initrd. Since the boot process is still compatible with an older mechanism, the following boot command line parameters have to be given: root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc rw How should this be read ? I guess it has to be updated so that it's now mandatory to use root=/dev/ram0. Isn't it ? I might be totally wrong. At least i'm pretty sure some clarifications will help. TIA. --