Arch Linux

yak8998

Member

Registered: 2004-03-01

Posts: 143

Re: INITRD - share your woes

okay, im thinking mkinitrd might be broken? look:

[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# losetup
usage:
  losetup loop_device                                       # give info
  losetup -d loop_device                                    # delete
  losetup -f                                                # find unused
  losetup [-e encryption] [-o offset] {-f|loop_device} file # setup
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# losetup -f
/dev/loop0
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# mkinitrd auto
Checking Input...
    Making image for standard Arch kernel (2.6.15-ARCH)...
Setting up Parameters...
    /lib/modules/2.6.15-ARCH found
ERROR: All of your loopback devices are in use!
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# 

---

"Ignorance is bliss, for stupid people."
"open-source is [...] programming Darwinism."
Vaughan-Nichols

PJ

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2005-10-11

Posts: 602

Re: INITRD - share your woes

okay, im thinking mkinitrd might be broken? look:

[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# losetup
usage:
  losetup loop_device                                       # give info
  losetup -d loop_device                                    # delete
  losetup -f                                                # find unused
  losetup [-e encryption] [-o offset] {-f|loop_device} file # setup
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# losetup -f
/dev/loop0
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# mkinitrd auto
Checking Input...
    Making image for standard Arch kernel (2.6.15-ARCH)...
Setting up Parameters...
    /lib/modules/2.6.15-ARCH found
ERROR: All of your loopback devices are in use!
[root@thebeast linux-2.6.3]# 

I have never had to create the loopback interface. It has allways worked automatic. I guess you sholdn't setup the loopback, leave that to mkinitrd.

yak8998

Member

Registered: 2004-03-01

Posts: 143

Re: INITRD - share your woes

i'm not trying to create one (unless i need to). mkinitrd just complains that they're all in use. but  losetup -f reports that /dev/loop0 is free...?

---

"Ignorance is bliss, for stupid people."
"open-source is [...] programming Darwinism."
Vaughan-Nichols

hjorthboggild

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2005-11-05

Posts: 89

Re: INITRD - share your woes

Hi,

I have a question regarding the [permanent] tag, when running lsmod. Does [permanent] mean that the moduel is unused?

This is the result (part of) of my lsmod:

ide_floppy             18048  0
ide_cd                 39556  0
cdrom                  38688  1 ide_cd
ide_disk               16000  3
piix                    9732  0 [permanent]
generic                 4356  0 [permanent]
ide_core              120272  6 usb_storage,ide_floppy,ide_cd,ide_disk,piix,generic

In my mkinitrd.conf file, I have specified HOSTCONTROLLER_IDE="generic piix" due to the fact that running a hwdetect --ide, which yields: HOSTCONTROLLER_IDE: generic piix

Naturally, I have also done a 'mkinitrd auto' to enforce the changes made to the mkinitrd.conf file.

Why am I still getting these [permanent] tags with the piix and generic modules? Is everything correct or do I still need to change something?

Regards
Simon

hjorthboggild

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2005-11-05

Posts: 89

Re: INITRD - share your woes

Any ideas to my posting above?

Regards
Simon

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: INITRD - share your woes

I also have these [permanent] for the piix and generic modules. I am not a kernel expert but I would guess that it just means that you can't unload these modules as they are needed to access your root filesystem.

hjorthboggild

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2005-11-05

Posts: 89

Re: INITRD - share your woes

Thanks, Snowman, for clearing that up for me

Bengi

Member

Registered: 2005-10-25

Posts: 21

Re: INITRD - share your woes

Hi,

I was having a problem with the move to initrd on one of my machines. It has a hpt366 ide controller which is running linux software raid. My root partition resides on this. The device nodes usually used by these are hde[1-3] and hdg[1-3]. When the initrd image is created by mkinitrd it only creates the hda - hdd devices nodes in the initrd so mdadm is unable to start my root array (which resides on hde3 and hdg3). I fixed this by adding the following lines to /sbin/mkinitd after line 772:-

mkblkdevs hde 1 12 33 1
mkblkdevs hdg 1 12 34 1

Obviously the next time I upgrade mkinitrd this script will get overwritten and I will need to re-add these lines. Is there somewhere else I can add these lines or is there some other way to achive the same result but without having to modify /sbin/mkinitrd each time it is upgraded?

Thanks in advance.

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: INITRD - share your woes

It looks like something that should go in flyspray: http://bugs.archlinux.org/

Bengi

Member

Registered: 2005-10-25

Posts: 21

Re: INITRD - share your woes

I have added it to flyspray here:-

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/4043

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: INITRD - share your woes

re: Permanent modules, piix is a module used for some ide controllers, usually on intel chipset mobos.

iphitus

deft

Member

Registered: 2005-03-14

Posts: 79

Re: INITRD - share your woes

After following the wiki guide mine's working fine:

# Disable whole subsystems by setting to "1"
REMOVE_IDE=
REMOVE_SCSI=1
REMOVE_SATA=1
REMOVE_CDROM=
REMOVE_USB=1
REMOVE_FW=1
REMOVE_RAID=1
REMOVE_DM=1
REMOVE_FS=

# Enable auto-detection of HOSTCONTROLlER and FILESYSTEMS (set to "1")
#   (NOTE: This is still experimental, so it is disabled by default)
AUTODETECT=0

# Define which modules are needed by adding "moduleX moduleY"
# If left empty, all modules are included if they are not disabled above
HOSTCONTROLLER_IDE="generic piix"
HOSTCONTROLLER_SCSI=
HOSTCONTROLLER_SATA=
HOSTCONTROLLER_USB=
FILESYSTEMS="ext3"

# Number of seconds to wait for USB devices to settle
USB_TIMEOUT=5

# If you have an encrypted root filesystem, set it here (eg, /dev/hda4)
CRYPT_DEVICE=

# If you use software RAID for your root device then list all the devices
# that belong to your root array here.  If your root RAID device is
# something other than md0, then change the RAID_ROOT_ARRAY setting.
#    eg, RAID_ROOT_DEVICES="/dev/hda3 /dev/hdc3"
RAID_ROOT_ARRAY="md0"
RAID_ROOT_DEVICES=

# If you use LVM on your root device, then specify it here
#    eg, LVM_ROOT="/dev/vg_root/lv_root"
LVM_ROOT=

# Define additional modules here
ADD_MODULE=
REMOVE_MODULE=

SCSI/SATA/USB/FW/RAID/DM are gone - "generic piix" and "ext3" are in - works smoothly at the moment