Bug 56659

Summary: mkinitrd does not make complete initrd
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Francois-Xavier 'FiX' KOWALSKI <francois-xavier.kowalski>
Component: mkinitrdAssignee: Matt Wilson <msw>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact: David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.2CC: bheadley
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2001-11-27 20:03:14 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description Flags
An initrd file made by mkinitrd 3.2.6 none

Description Francois-Xavier 'FiX' KOWALSKI 2001-11-23 16:41:54 UTC 
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Description of problem:
mkinitrd umount the loop-back file system carrying drivers without flushing
it to the file.  this results in a non-usable initrd image at boot time, so
sometimes a boot failure, when the needed scsi driver is part of the modules.

added a "sync" line just before the "umount $MNTPOINT" fixes the problem.

the root cause is maybe located in the loop.c lopp-back driver itself.  the
bug-fix above is just a work-around.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. compile a new kernel (>=2.4.14)
2. install it (make install && make install_modules)
3. attempt to build a new initrd image with mkinitrd
4. reboot.
	

Actual Results:  in case the root fs is located on a scsi device, whose
driver is not built-into the kernel, the boot sequence fails.

Expected Results:  scsi module found in the loopback image & boot successful

Additional info:

I know that RedHat 7.2 usually only carries kernel 2.4.7 by default. 
However, this fix is a matter of improving the robustness of the mkinitrd
script.
Comment 1 Bryan Headley 2001-11-27 20:00:39 UTC 
Created attachment 38824 [details]
An initrd file made by mkinitrd 3.2.6
Comment 2 Bryan Headley 2001-11-27 20:03:09 UTC 
An adjunct to the original report. mkinitrd had no problem building 2.4.15's
initrd file. But it failed with 2.4.15-pre1 and beyond. Attached is what it
builds for 2.4.16. I'm going to try Francois-Xavier's suggested patch...
Comment 3 Erik Troan 2002-01-16 20:35:34 UTC 
Kernel bug; fixed in 2.4.16; never occured in any real Red Hat release.