Initramfs init

From Alpine Linux
Revision as of 05:25, 14 June 2019 by Jjott (talk | contribs)

initramfs init cmdline options

The init script in the initramfs which is loaded by the kernel understands the following entires in your kernel command line:

ip=dhcp : use DHCP for network configuration.

ip=client-ip:server-ip:gw-ip:netmask:hostname:device:autoconf:dns1:dns2 : use static IP configuration, each field is separated by a colon :

  • client-ip ip address of the guest VM where we are going to run the installer
  • server-ip not used, leave blank or fill with none
  • gw-ip the gateway ip address
  • netmask the netmask
  • hostname not used, leave blank or fill with none
  • device the network interface of the guest VM, default is eth0 if left blank
  • autoconf not used, leave blank or fill with none or off
  • dns1 address of the DNS server
  • dns2 address of the 2nd DNS server

alpine_repo= : the location of the Alpine repository from which packages are downloaded.

For stable release, use http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.9/main
For rolling release, use http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main

modloop= : the remote location of the image containing kernel's modules, required for LVM and raid setup.

The remote location of the modloop image is the same as the kernel and initramfs (see below).

ssh_key= : the remote location of your SSH public key which is used to allow SSH connection into the installer. It will be downloaded and copied into /root/.ssh/authorized_keys in the installer.

Note: Fetching public keys from HTTP, HTTPS and FTPS are supported. HTTP should only be used in local development network where you own the network.
Note: Alpine Linux security policies are against using passwords for root access via SSH as we consider using public-private key pairs is a much better approach.


  • quiet (flag) less verbose init script execution
  • debug_init (flag) sets '-x' in the init script and -d for mdev
  • chart (flag)
  • alpine_repo=
  • blacklist=
  • apkovl=URL load the apkovl file from URL
  • dasd=
  • s390x_net=
  • rootfstype=
  • modules=
  • crytptroot=
  • cryptdm=
  • cryptheader=
  • cryptoffset=
  • cryptokey=
  • nbd=
  • root=
  • resume
  • rootflags
  • init=
  • init_args=
  • usbdelay
  • pkgs=
  • ssh_key=
  • keep_apk_new
  • splash=