Re: [Xen-users] what does "initrd-2.6.32.9.img" contains

[lei yang <yanglei.fage@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:46 PM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:32:17PM +0800, lei yang wrote:
>    On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Pasi Kärkkäinen <[1]pasik@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
>      On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 04:40:33PM +0800, lei yang wrote:
>      >    Hi all
>      >
>      >    If I use nfsroot boot the xen dom0, I find it works well if not use
>      >    initrd-2.6.32.9.img.
>      >
>      >    what does  "initrd-2.6.32.9.img" contains?
>      >
>
>      It's the "initial ramdisk" for Linux kernel. It contains (some) driver
>      modules for the kernel,
>      and a script to load them and to mount the actual root filesystem and
>      switch to it.
>
>      All the distros nowadays compile drivers as modules (ie. not included in
>      the kernel itself),
>      and use the initrd image to load only the needed/required drivers at
>      boot time.
>
>
>
>    Thanks Pasi, I have another question, why we need this initrd ramdisk,
>    because we can put the kernel module in the dir "/lib" of rootfs, if we
>    ignor the initrd, it should work
>

Because you can't access the rootfs before you have the drivers loaded!!
initrd contains the drivers required to access the *rootfs*.

 

aha, Thanks, that's the good answer, today, I boot a dom0 without initrd

 

gPXE> dhcp net0
DHCP (net0 00:15:17:b0:01:76).... ok
gPXE> kernel del/xen-4.0.0 module 17906/kernel  root=/dev/nfs rw nfsroot=128.224.165.20:/export/17906/rootfs ip=dhcp console=ttyS0,115200 enforcing=0
gPXE> boot

 

it boot well, maybe some drivers is not compiled "Y" not "M", I'm not sure which kernel module is need before access rootfs

 

Thanks

Lei

 

 

 

-- Pasi

>    Lei
>
>
>
>      -- Pasi
>
>    --
>    "We learn from failure, not from success!"
>

> References
>
>    Visible links
>    1. mailto:pasik@xxxxxx

-- 
"We learn from failure, not from success!"
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