I use an EVMS system with an EVMS root, so I need to use an initramfs with support for it to boot. Lately new builds of an initramfs were failing, forcing me to use an older one I had built. The forums URL contains my trials and tribulations in finding the culprit, which I finally have. First the problem. Booting with new initramfs images would provide this: Freeing unused kernel memory: 196k freed >> Loading modules >> Activating mdev >> Activating EVMS /init: /init: 227: evms_activate: not found >> Determining root device... !! Block device /dev/evms/root is not a valid root device... !! The root block device is unspecified or not detected. Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell... boot() :: _ There was an /sbin/evms_activate "in" the image (I could see it with the busybox shell) but it was unexecutable (even when I provided a full path to it inside the shell). Booting an older (built in mid-September, if my memory is right [which it may not be, I've gone through many in testing]) initramfs worked fine. After reinstalling and updating to ~amd64 while trying kernel/initramfs builds at various intervals, I narrowed the problem down to cpio-2.7. An initramfs built using genkernel and cpio-2.7 fails as the above, rebooting, downgrading to cpio-2.6-r5 and rebuilding the initramfs produces a usable one again. emerge --info: Portage 2.1.2_rc1-r2 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1/desktop, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.5-r0, 2.6.18-gentoo-r1 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.18-gentoo-r1 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.5 Last Sync: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:50:01 +0000 app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present] dev-java/java-config: [Not Present] dev-lang/python: 2.4.3-r4 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 dev-util/ccache: [Not Present] dev-util/confcache: [Not Present] sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.60 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10 sys-devel/binutils: 2.17 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon64 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/gconf /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon64 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.mirrors.tds.net/gentoo ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/gentoo http://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo http://gentoo.cites.uiuc.edu/pub/gentoo/ http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 X alsa arts berkdb bitmap-fonts cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dlloader dri dvd dvdr eds elibc_glibc emboss encode esd fam firefox fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk2 hal iconv input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse ipv6 isdnlog jpeg kde kernel_linux ldap libg++ mad mikmod mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl oss pam pcre perl png ppds pppd python qt3 qt4 quicktime readline reflection sdl session spell spl ssl tcpd truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode userland_GNU video_cards_apm video_cards_ark video_cards_ati video_cards_chips video_cards_cirrus video_cards_cyrix video_cards_dummy video_cards_fbdev video_cards_glint video_cards_i128 video_cards_i810 video_cards_mga video_cards_neomagic video_cards_nv video_cards_rendition video_cards_s3 video_cards_s3virge video_cards_savage video_cards_siliconmotion video_cards_sis video_cards_sisusb video_cards_tdfx video_cards_tga video_cards_trident video_cards_tseng video_cards_v4l video_cards_vesa video_cards_vga video_cards_via video_cards_vmware video_cards_voodoo vorbis xml xorg xv zlib" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY Thanks.
Same here... I was generating an initrd with preseed.cfg file in it for bulk ubuntu installs. In my case, I even extracted the initrd, made no changes, and package it back up with "find . | cpio -H newc -o | gzip -9 > ../initrd.gz" and a number of variants and still get a failure. I'll get an error that init cannot be found, or (if I change the order of the file list fed to cpio) init will run but other portions of the startup scripts fail shortly thereafter. The extraction is clean, because I can rsync those files into a Ubuntu VM (under qemu), run cpio in there and get a working initrd.gz out.
It produces broken cpio archives with symlinks. ~/tmp > ll -R .: total 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 18 Nov 8 16:48 dir1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Nov 8 16:47 link1 -> dir1/file1 ./dir1: total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 8 16:47 file1 ~/tmp > find ./ | cpio --create --format=newc > ../test.cpio 2 blocks ~/tmp > cpio --list --verbose < ../test.cpio drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Nov 8 16:48 ./ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Nov 8 16:48 dir1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 8 16:47 dir1/file1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Nov 8 16:47 link1 -> dir1/file1D notice the "dir1/file1D"! I suggest this bug be priority P1, blocker, and that this version be p.masked ASAP. Portage 2.1.2_rc1-r5 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.5-r0, 2.6.18 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.18 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.6 Last Sync: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 19:50:01 +0000 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.30 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.60 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10 sys-devel/binutils: 2.17 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -pipe -O2" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/bind" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/init.d /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -pipe -O2" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg distlocks fixpackages metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms splitdebug strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.datapipe.net/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j4" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/portage/local/layman/vmware /usr/portage/local/layman/portage-xgl" SYNC="rsync://rsync.us.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="amd64 arts elibc_glibc input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility kernel_linux nptl nptlonly userland_GNU video_cards_fbdev video_cards_nv video_cards_nvidia video_cards_vesa" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
Created attachment 101506 [details, diff] terminate link_name from readlink. Downloaded from upstream: http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/cpio/src/copyout.c?root=cpio&r1=1.19&r2=1.20&makepatch=1&diff_format=h
cpio-2.7-r1 now in portage with fix, thanks guys
