On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:26:56 +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote about Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Full disk encryption:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:07:35 +0000, David W Noon wrote: > > > > Why do you need e2fsprogs on an initramfs? > > > > One needs e2fsck to do a "preen" prior to mounting the required > > volume(s). > > Why not mount root read-only, just like in a non-initramfs system? > > Any e2fsck commands will be run during the boot runlevel, before > remounting root rw. Unfortunately, the system does not work that way. When running inside an initramfs, one cannot load executable content from mount points -- only from within the initramfs. So, while it is perfectly possible to do "ls /mnt/root/sbin/e2fsck" (assuming the root partition has been mounted ro as /mnt/root), it is not possible to load and execute that program. [And, yes, I have adjusted the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH shell variables to address the program and library directories on the mounted root partition.] After performing a switch_root to the actual root partition, this restriction is lifted. When running without (or with the default) initramfs, the root partition itself becomes the active filesystem, so loading programs from /sbin or /bin and libraries from /lib works as expected. This might be one of Dale's problems, if he was trying to use commands from the root filesystem within the initramfs. -- Regards, Dave [RLU #314465] *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* dwn...@ntlworld.com (David W Noon) *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
