Bug 41945

Summary:	genkernel 3.0.1_beta12: MAKEDEV command not found; initrd not build
Product:	Gentoo Hosted Projects	Reporter:	G. Angely <Gaetan.Angely>
Component:	genkernel	Assignee:	x86-kernel (DEPRECATED) <x86-kernel>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID
Severity:	normal
Priority:	High
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	x86
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description G. Angely 2004-02-17 12:43:04 UTC

When started from an 'su' shell, genkernel can not format initrd.
The error is reported as:
------------
/usr/bin/genkernel: line 49: MAKEDEV: command not found 
/usr/bin/genkernel: line 50: MAKEDEV: command not found 
...
gen_die(): could not format initrd-loop
------------
When started from an login root shell, initrd is correctly formatted.



Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. (from an user kernel) sudo bash
2. genkernel all
3.

Actual Results:  
initrd-x.y.z file not written in /boot

Expected Results:  
initrd-x.y.z file in /boot

Comment 1 Tim Yamin (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2004-02-19 10:11:48 UTC

OK, can you please upgrade to the latest baselayout in Portage and tell us if you still get this?

Comment 2 Brad House 2004-02-21 13:49:16 UTC

most likely you need to do   'su -'  NOT  'su' to get to a root
shell.  Otherwise /sbin and /usr/sbin will NOT be in your path.

-Brad

Comment 3 Niklas Herder 2004-08-04 02:45:16 UTC

This also makes genkernel not work with sudo, which is my preferred method of sysadmining.
Wouldn't a trivial fix be to use /sbin/MAKEDEV instead of just MAKEDEV?
Or is there more to this?

I thought it was good practice to use absolute paths anyway, when doing something requiring root privileges.