[Grml] noob initrd question

[Michael Prokop]

* martin yazdzik <yazdzik at nyct.net> [20070716 20:15]:

> This is progress - thanks - much further along.
> now, ato boot-up we get   /init... cannot find /dev/root and so on.
[...]

* martin yazdzik <yazdzik at nyct.net> [20070716 21:15]:

> Okay - found problem, no solution:

> in 2.6.22, libata represents sdX as hdX, but, obviously, I cannot change
> lilo.conf to root=/dev/hda4, since it gives the error that the device
> does not exist, which, in fact, it does not under any running kernel.
[...]

* martin yazdzik <yazdzik at nyct.net> [20070716 22:02]:

> Progress in understanding the issue but no solution -

> after proper install of kernel 2.6.22 and initrd, the kernel cannot
> find /dev/root.  
> googled that for some reason the new libata calls sdx hdx - okay 

> I did:

> edit lilo to append to the .22 entry root=/dev/hda4
[...]

Martin, try choosing the UUID approach instead. Boot grml live-CD
and find out the UUID of your root-partition. On my system that's
what's known as /dev/hda2, so I can identify the UUID via running:

# vol_id --uuid /dev/hda2
56d23a4e-6dc3-4b68-9480-6f6b7f474be0

Now use this UUID for your root-device in /boot/grub/menu.lst or
/etc/lilo.conf. For example:

# kopt=root=UUID=56d23a4e-6dc3-4b68-9480-6f6b7f474be0 ro

for menu.lst when using grub, or add 'root=UUID=....' to the
append-line of lilo.conf when using lilo.

You should add the UUID also to the /etc/fstab of your
root-partition in the following form:

/dev/disk/by-uuid/56d23a4e-6dc3-4b68-9480-6f6b7f474be0  /  ext3  noatime,errors=remount-ro  0 1

When using an initramfs generated by initramfs-tools (that's the
'update-initramfs -c -t -k 2.6.22-grml' stuff) your system should
boot up now.

Important: Please notice, that you should use initramfs-tools
version 0.87b and *not* a more recent one. The versions newer than
0.87b seem to have serious problems regarding booting, that's why
I've put 0.87b into the grml-repository too. As long as you don't
explicitely run 'apt-get install initramfs-tools/unstable' you won't
find an upgraded (broken) version on your system. But please make
sure you didn't hit one of the few days where initramfs-tools wasn't
pinned via grml's repository yet and you upgraded to a broken
package version. In case of question just grab and install
http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2007/04/18/debian/pool/main/i/initramfs-tools/initramfs-tools_0.87b_all.deb
and re-execute 'update-initramfs -c -t -k 2.6.22-grml'.

JFTR: I'm talking about
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=431291 and AFAIK
the issue isn't fixed yet. :-/ Looks like I've to debug
initramfs-tools once more on my own. :-(

regards,
-mika-
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