Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

5.54. dracut

Updated dracut packages that fix a bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The dracut packages include an event-driven initramfs generator infrastructure based on the udev device manager. The virtual file system, initramfs, is loaded together with the kernel at boot time and initializes the system, so it can read and boot from the root partition.

Bug Fix

BZ#860351
If the "/boot/" directory was not on a separate file system, dracut called the sha512hmac utility with a file name prefixed with "/sysroot/boot". Consequently, sha512mac searched for the file checksum in "/boot/", returned errors, and dracut considered the FIPS check to have failed. Eventually, a kernel panic occurred. With this update, dracut uses a symlink linking "/boot" to "/sysroot/boot", sha512mac can now access files in "/boot/", and FIPS checks now pass, allowing the system to boot properly in the described scenario.
All users of dracut are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix this bug.
Updated dracut packages that fix one bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The dracut packages include an event-driven initramfs generator infrastructure based on the udev device manager. The virtual file system, initramfs, is loaded together with the kernel at boot time.

Bug Fix

BZ#839296
Previously, the default mount option of the proc file system used during boot was "mount -t proc -o nosuid,noexec,nodev proc /proc". This caused that device nodes in the proc file system were inaccessible by certain kernel drivers. With this update, the option has been changed to previously used "mount -t proc proc /proc", so that the proc file system can be successfully accessed by kernel drivers.
All users of dracut are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix this bug.
Updated dracut packages that fix multiple bugs and add two enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The dracut packages include an event-driven initramfs generator infrastructure based on udev. The virtual file system, initramfs, is loaded together with the kernel at boot time and initializes the system, so it can read and boot from the root partition.

Bug Fixes

BZ#788119
Previously, if a dracut module did not contain an "install" file, dracut could not execute the "installkernel" command. Consequently, the dracut fips-aesni module could not be included in the initramfs image. Now, "installkernel" can be correctly executed in the described scenario, thus fixing this bug.
BZ#761584
Previously, dracut failed to start up a degraded RAID array, resulting in a non-booting system. With this update, dracut uses the rd_retry kernel command-line parameter value and after rd_retry/2 seconds attempts to force the array to start, thus fixing this bug.
BZ#747840
During boot-up, dracut called the "udevadm settle" command several times. As a result, inconsequential messages about the command timeout were sometimes returned, creating clutter in the console output. This update fixes the bug and the messages are no longer returned in the described scenario.
BZ#735529
Occasionally, dracut attempted to assemble an array before all disks were available. As a result, dracut started the array in degraded mode or failed altogether. This bug has been fixed and dracut now forces degraded arrays to start only after a period of time controlled by the rd_retry kernel command-line parameter.
BZ#714039
The dracut package depended on the vconfig package although vconfig is not used by dracut. This update removes the dependency on vconfig.
BZ#794863
Previously, if a network interface was brought up, dracut waited for two seconds to detect that the link was up. For certain network cards, two seconds is not long enough. Consequently, the network was not properly set up and the system could not boot. Now, dracut waits for ten seconds, thus fixing this bug.
BZ#752584
Dracut did not set the broadcast address for network interfaces it started up, resulting in a 0.0.0.0 broadcast address. This bug has been fixed and the default broadcast address is now set properly on startup.
BZ#703164
The FILES section of the dracut man page has been amended to fix inaccurate content.
BZ#752073
If the user adds multiple "console=[tty]" parameters on the kernel command line, the last parameter specifies the primary console. Previously, dracut failed to initialize this console and instead initialized /dev/tty0 unconditionally. This bug has been fixed and dracut now initializes the correct console in the described scenario.
BZ#788618
When no user name and password were specified in an iSCSI interface, dracut reused the login information from a previous iSCSI parameter. Consequently, the authentication failed and the system did not boot up. This update fixes the bug.

Enhancements

BZ#722879
Previously, it was not possible to exclude a kernel driver from the initramfs image to reduce its size. This update introduces the "--omit-driver" option to provide this functionality.
BZ#752005
The "lsinitrd" command has been enhanced to support initramfs images compressed by the LZMA algorithm.
Users of dracut are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.