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authorAaron Ball <nullspoon@oper.io>2023-03-05 11:15:06 -0700
committerAaron Ball <nullspoon@oper.io>2023-03-05 11:15:06 -0700
commitdfcf646257566df65a07722c30564286935f394a (patch)
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parent3c4a728f6d23bce2b2f7a523b01c6b88f3ced2f9 (diff)
downloadmkinitramfs-dfcf646257566df65a07722c30564286935f394a.tar.gz
mkinitramfs-dfcf646257566df65a07722c30564286935f394a.tar.xz
Rewrite README to markdown and remove cryptroot option
This switches the readme over to markdown which has a much smaller interpreter than asciidoc (welcome commonmark!). Also, the cryptroot option was removed a few commits back, so this removes its documentation from the readme.
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+README
+======
+
+Description
+-----------
+
+Mkinitramfs is a shell script that will generate a cpio init ram filesystem.
+
+The script itself simply checks for minimum required kernel capabilities,
+recursively copies in useful applications and their library dependencies (using
+ldd), and uses cpio to generate an init ram filesystem.
+
+Note that this also includes an init script used for booting from the initrd
+image, into the actual system. It includes support for dm-crypt encrypted root
+volumes, as well as providing simple debugging capabilities.
+
+
+Usage
+-----
+
+The script, mkinitramfs, creates a new init ram filesystem.
+
+To use it, simply execute it, with the version of the kernel specified, and it
+will create the initrd file, written to `/boot/initrd-${version}`. A
+corresponding `/boot/vmlinuz-${version}` and `/boot/System.map-${version}` is
+required. This version format is recognized by grub, so grub-mkconfig will
+detect these files.
+
+**NOTE**: This will overwrite the `/boot/initrd-${version}` file if it exists.
+If you have something there that you want to keep, be sure to back it up before
+running mkinitramfs.
+
+
+Init Arguments
+--------------
+
+### root
+
+* **required**: yes
+* **examples**:
+** root=/dev/sda3
+** root=UUID=92b74fd7-6e4f-4a52-ad40-fac874410ca3
+** root=LABEL=system
+
+Path to the root device. Supports a dev path, LABEL, and UUID values. If device
+is encrypted, the user will be prompted to decrypt it with a password. The
+decrypted device will be mounted at _/dev/mapper/_dev_sda3_ (per the example).
+
+**NOTE**: This only works with encrypted devices where the encrypted device
+contains only a filesystem. If the encrypted device contains its own partition
+table, see the _cryptroot_ directive.
+
+
+
+### quiet
+
+* **required**: no
+* **examples**: NA
+
+Applying this kernel parameter will quiet the boot process significantly. This
+parameter is respected by the mkinitramfs init process as well as the Linux
+kernel.
+
+
+### initdebug
+
+* **required**: no
+* **examples**: NA
+
+Enables step-by-step boot mode. Each step requires the user to hit the return
+key.
+
+**NOTE**: Enabling this will probably make the boot process go very slowly as
+it requires a user response for every step.
+
+
+### interractive
+
+* **required**: no
+* **examples**: NA
+
+Drops the user into an interractive shell, but before performing the first
+mount operation, which is where most problems start to occur. This can be
+useful for implementing new features in the init script, debugging problems,
+checking the environment, etc.

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