How to unpack and repack an initial ramdisk (initrd/initramfs) image?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6

Issue

  • How do I unpack, and then repack an initrd image in Red Hat Enterprise Linux ?
  • How do I modify the initrd image ?
  • How do I view an initrd file ?

Resolution

  • Create a directory and switch into it:
# mkdir test
# cd test
  • Then uncompress and extract the initrd:
# zcat /boot/initrd-2.6.18-164.6.1.el5.img | cpio -idmv
  • Edit the contents (if needed)
  • Finally repack and compress the initrd image:
# find . | cpio -o -c | gzip -9 > /boot/test.img
  • For image compressed with xz format, the below commands can be used to extract the initrd image.
# mkdir /tmp/initrd
# cd /tmp/initrd
# xz -dc < initrd.img | cpio --quiet -i --make-directories
  • Edit the contents (if needed)
  • Finally repack and compress the initrd image:
# cd /tmp/initrd
# find . 2>/dev/null | cpio --quiet -c -o | xz -9 --format=lzma >"new_initrd.img"

Note: For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, please use How to extract the contents of initramfs image on RHEL7? for extracting the .img file.

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