Initramfs init

mkinitfs is a tool to create initramfs images. Initramfs images are small images which contain a small filesystem with everything required to boot Alpine. For example, when booting a setup with full disk encryption, the initramfs contains the binaries required to prompt for a password and mount the encrypted disk.

Usage

Under a running alpine machine, the following command can be used if for some reason the initramfs has not been created properly for a new kernel.

mkinitfs -c /etc/mkinitfs/mkinitfs.conf -b / <kernelvers>

The script is located in /sbin/ and is created with ash. It expects /lib/modules to be populated with the <kernelvers> listed. For variations on this command (e.g. for chroot) Search "mkinitfs".

initramfs init cmdline options (work in progress)

In addition to the kernel boot parameters are a number of parameters that the init script understands. These are documented in the mkinitfs-bootparam(7) man page.

Although you may specify your own init script when building an initramfs, these parameters allow for extensive control over the initial startup of an Alpine Linux system.

See Also

• PostmarketOS Wiki
• ArchWiki boot process