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Description of problem:
We have a system with a large number of volume groups, including a
root volume group:

# ls -l /etc/lvmtab.d
total 11168
-rw-r-----  1 root root  177372 Jun 21 18:05 rootvg
-rw-r-----  1 root root  385880 Jun 21 18:05 vg_adelie
-rw-r-----  1 root root 1339440 Jun 21 18:05 vg_biff
-rw-r-----  1 root root 1339440 Jun 21 18:05 vg_clouds
-rw-r-----  1 root root 4727796 Jun 21 18:23 vg_ocean
-rw-r-----  1 root root  719724 Jun 21 18:05 vg_radar
-rw-r-----  1 root root 1339720 Jun 21 18:05 vg_soldyn
-rw-r-----  1 root root 1339740 Jun 21 18:05 vg_waves

The initrd image that mkinitrd creates fails at boot doing a vgscan
with the following errors, presumably because the ramdisk runs out of
space:

(null) -- ERROR 2 writing volume group backup file
/etc/lvmtab.d/rootg.tmp in vg_cfgbackup.c [line 273]
vgscan -- ERROR: unable to do a backup of volume group "rootvg"
vgscan -- ERROR "lvm_tab_vg_remove(): unlink" removing volume group
"rootvg" from "/etc/lvmtab"

Perhaps an attempt could be made in mkinitrd to determine the name of
the root volume group and only activate that, i.e.:

vgscan rootvg
vgchange -ay rootvg


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
mkinitrd-3.5.14-1

How reproducible:
Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Install a system with a root volume group
2.  Create a large number of volume groups
3.  Install a new kernel or make a new initrd with mkinitrd
    

Additional info: