Documentation / filesystems / ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt
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Based on kernel version 3.13. Page generated on 2014-01-20 22:03 EST.
1 ramfs, rootfs and initramfs 2 October 17, 2005 3 Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> 4 ============================= 5 6 What is ramfs? 7 -------------- 8 9 Ramfs is a very simple filesystem that exports Linux's disk caching 10 mechanisms (the page cache and dentry cache) as a dynamically resizable 11 RAM-based filesystem. 12 13 Normally all files are cached in memory by Linux. Pages of data read from 14 backing store (usually the block device the filesystem is mounted on) are kept 15 around in case it's needed again, but marked as clean (freeable) in case the 16 Virtual Memory system needs the memory for something else. Similarly, data 17 written to files is marked clean as soon as it has been written to backing 18 store, but kept around for caching purposes until the VM reallocates the 19 memory. A similar mechanism (the dentry cache) greatly speeds up access to 20 directories. 21 22 With ramfs, there is no backing store. Files written into ramfs allocate 23 dentries and page cache as usual, but there's nowhere to write them to. 24 This means the pages are never marked clean, so they can't be freed by the 25 VM when it's looking to recycle memory. 26 27 The amount of code required to implement ramfs is tiny, because all the 28 work is done by the existing Linux caching infrastructure. Basically, 29 you're mounting the disk cache as a filesystem. Because of this, ramfs is not 30 an optional component removable via menuconfig, since there would be negligible 31 space savings. 32 33 ramfs and ramdisk: 34 ------------------ 35 36 The older "ram disk" mechanism created a synthetic block device out of 37 an area of RAM and used it as backing store for a filesystem. This block 38 device was of fixed size, so the filesystem mounted on it was of fixed 39 size. Using a ram disk also required unnecessarily copying memory from the 40 fake block device into the page cache (and copying changes back out), as well 41 as creating and destroying dentries. Plus it needed a filesystem driver 42 (such as ext2) to format and interpret this data. 43 44 Compared to ramfs, this wastes memory (and memory bus bandwidth), creates 45 unnecessary work for the CPU, and pollutes the CPU caches. (There are tricks 46 to avoid this copying by playing with the page tables, but they're unpleasantly 47 complicated and turn out to be about as expensive as the copying anyway.) 48 More to the point, all the work ramfs is doing has to happen _anyway_, 49 since all file access goes through the page and dentry caches. The RAM 50 disk is simply unnecessary; ramfs is internally much simpler. 51 52 Another reason ramdisks are semi-obsolete is that the introduction of 53 loopback devices offered a more flexible and convenient way to create 54 synthetic block devices, now from files instead of from chunks of memory. 55 See losetup (8) for details. 56 57 ramfs and tmpfs: 58 ---------------- 59 60 One downside of ramfs is you can keep writing data into it until you fill 61 up all memory, and the VM can't free it because the VM thinks that files 62 should get written to backing store (rather than swap space), but ramfs hasn't 63 got any backing store. Because of this, only root (or a trusted user) should 64 be allowed write access to a ramfs mount. 65 66 A ramfs derivative called tmpfs was created to add size limits, and the ability 67 to write the data to swap space. Normal users can be allowed write access to 68 tmpfs mounts. See Documentation/filesystems/tmpfs.txt for more information. 69 70 What is rootfs? 71 --------------- 72 73 Rootfs is a special instance of ramfs (or tmpfs, if that's enabled), which is 74 always present in 2.6 systems. You can't unmount rootfs for approximately the 75 same reason you can't kill the init process; rather than having special code 76 to check for and handle an empty list, it's smaller and simpler for the kernel 77 to just make sure certain lists can't become empty. 78 79 Most systems just mount another filesystem over rootfs and ignore it. The 80 amount of space an empty instance of ramfs takes up is tiny. 81 82 If CONFIG_TMPFS is enabled, rootfs will use tmpfs instead of ramfs by 83 default. To force ramfs, add "rootfstype=ramfs" to the kernel command 84 line. 85 86 What is initramfs? 87 ------------------ 88 89 All 2.6 Linux kernels contain a gzipped "cpio" format archive, which is 90 extracted into rootfs when the kernel boots up. After extracting, the kernel 91 checks to see if rootfs contains a file "init", and if so it executes it as PID 92 1. If found, this init process is responsible for bringing the system the 93 rest of the way up, including locating and mounting the real root device (if 94 any). If rootfs does not contain an init program after the embedded cpio 95 archive is extracted into it, the kernel will fall through to the older code 96 to locate and mount a root partition, then exec some variant of /sbin/init 97 out of that. 98 99 All this differs from the old initrd in several ways: 100 101 - The old initrd was always a separate file, while the initramfs archive is 102 linked into the linux kernel image. (The directory linux-*/usr is devoted 103 to generating this archive during the build.) 104 105 - The old initrd file was a gzipped filesystem image (in some file format, 106 such as ext2, that needed a driver built into the kernel), while the new 107 initramfs archive is a gzipped cpio archive (like tar only simpler, 108 see cpio(1) and Documentation/early-userspace/buffer-format.txt). The 109 kernel's cpio extraction code is not only extremely small, it's also 110 __init text and data that can be discarded during the boot process. 111 112 - The program run by the old initrd (which was called /initrd, not /init) did 113 some setup and then returned to the kernel, while the init program from 114 initramfs is not expected to return to the kernel. (If /init needs to hand 115 off control it can overmount / with a new root device and exec another init 116 program. See the switch_root utility, below.) 117 118 - When switching another root device, initrd would pivot_root and then 119 umount the ramdisk. But initramfs is rootfs: you can neither pivot_root 120 rootfs, nor unmount it. Instead delete everything out of rootfs to 121 free up the space (find -xdev / -exec rm '{}' ';'), overmount rootfs 122 with the new root (cd /newmount; mount --move . /; chroot .), attach 123 stdin/stdout/stderr to the new /dev/console, and exec the new init. 124 125 Since this is a remarkably persnickety process (and involves deleting 126 commands before you can run them), the klibc package introduced a helper 127 program (utils/run_init.c) to do all this for you. Most other packages 128 (such as busybox) have named this command "switch_root". 129 130 Populating initramfs: 131 --------------------- 132 133 The 2.6 kernel build process always creates a gzipped cpio format initramfs 134 archive and links it into the resulting kernel binary. By default, this 135 archive is empty (consuming 134 bytes on x86). 136 137 The config option CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE (in General Setup in menuconfig, 138 and living in usr/Kconfig) can be used to specify a source for the 139 initramfs archive, which will automatically be incorporated into the 140 resulting binary. This option can point to an existing gzipped cpio 141 archive, a directory containing files to be archived, or a text file 142 specification such as the following example: 143 144 dir /dev 755 0 0 145 nod /dev/console 644 0 0 c 5 1 146 nod /dev/loop0 644 0 0 b 7 0 147 dir /bin 755 1000 1000 148 slink /bin/sh busybox 777 0 0 149 file /bin/busybox initramfs/busybox 755 0 0 150 dir /proc 755 0 0 151 dir /sys 755 0 0 152 dir /mnt 755 0 0 153 file /init initramfs/init.sh 755 0 0 154 155 Run "usr/gen_init_cpio" (after the kernel build) to get a usage message 156 documenting the above file format. 157 158 One advantage of the configuration file is that root access is not required to 159 set permissions or create device nodes in the new archive. (Note that those 160 two example "file" entries expect to find files named "init.sh" and "busybox" in 161 a directory called "initramfs", under the linux-2.6.* directory. See 162 Documentation/early-userspace/README for more details.) 163 164 The kernel does not depend on external cpio tools. If you specify a 165 directory instead of a configuration file, the kernel's build infrastructure 166 creates a configuration file from that directory (usr/Makefile calls 167 scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh), and proceeds to package up that directory 168 using the config file (by feeding it to usr/gen_init_cpio, which is created 169 from usr/gen_init_cpio.c). The kernel's build-time cpio creation code is 170 entirely self-contained, and the kernel's boot-time extractor is also 171 (obviously) self-contained. 172 173 The one thing you might need external cpio utilities installed for is creating 174 or extracting your own preprepared cpio files to feed to the kernel build 175 (instead of a config file or directory). 176 177 The following command line can extract a cpio image (either by the above script 178 or by the kernel build) back into its component files: 179 180 cpio -i -d -H newc -F initramfs_data.cpio --no-absolute-filenames 181 182 The following shell script can create a prebuilt cpio archive you can 183 use in place of the above config file: 184 185 #!/bin/sh 186 187 # Copyright 2006 Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> and TimeSys Corporation. 188 # Licensed under GPL version 2 189 190 if [ $# -ne 2 ] 191 then 192 echo "usage: mkinitramfs directory imagename.cpio.gz" 193 exit 1 194 fi 195 196 if [ -d "$1" ] 197 then 198 echo "creating $2 from $1" 199 (cd "$1"; find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip) > "$2" 200 else 201 echo "First argument must be a directory" 202 exit 1 203 fi 204 205 Note: The cpio man page contains some bad advice that will break your initramfs 206 archive if you follow it. It says "A typical way to generate the list 207 of filenames is with the find command; you should give find the -depth option 208 to minimize problems with permissions on directories that are unwritable or not 209 searchable." Don't do this when creating initramfs.cpio.gz images, it won't 210 work. The Linux kernel cpio extractor won't create files in a directory that 211 doesn't exist, so the directory entries must go before the files that go in 212 those directories. The above script gets them in the right order. 213 214 External initramfs images: 215 -------------------------- 216 217 If the kernel has initrd support enabled, an external cpio.gz archive can also 218 be passed into a 2.6 kernel in place of an initrd. In this case, the kernel 219 will autodetect the type (initramfs, not initrd) and extract the external cpio 220 archive into rootfs before trying to run /init. 221 222 This has the memory efficiency advantages of initramfs (no ramdisk block 223 device) but the separate packaging of initrd (which is nice if you have 224 non-GPL code you'd like to run from initramfs, without conflating it with 225 the GPL licensed Linux kernel binary). 226 227 It can also be used to supplement the kernel's built-in initramfs image. The 228 files in the external archive will overwrite any conflicting files in 229 the built-in initramfs archive. Some distributors also prefer to customize 230 a single kernel image with task-specific initramfs images, without recompiling. 231 232 Contents of initramfs: 233 ---------------------- 234 235 An initramfs archive is a complete self-contained root filesystem for Linux. 236 If you don't already understand what shared libraries, devices, and paths 237 you need to get a minimal root filesystem up and running, here are some 238 references: 239 http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/ 240 http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/From-PowerUp-To-Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.html 241 http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/ 242 243 The "klibc" package (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/klibc) is 244 designed to be a tiny C library to statically link early userspace 245 code against, along with some related utilities. It is BSD licensed. 246 247 I use uClibc (http://www.uclibc.org) and busybox (http://www.busybox.net) 248 myself. These are LGPL and GPL, respectively. (A self-contained initramfs 249 package is planned for the busybox 1.3 release.) 250 251 In theory you could use glibc, but that's not well suited for small embedded 252 uses like this. (A "hello world" program statically linked against glibc is 253 over 400k. With uClibc it's 7k. Also note that glibc dlopens libnss to do 254 name lookups, even when otherwise statically linked.) 255 256 A good first step is to get initramfs to run a statically linked "hello world" 257 program as init, and test it under an emulator like qemu (www.qemu.org) or 258 User Mode Linux, like so: 259 260 cat > hello.c << EOF 261 #include <stdio.h> 262 #include <unistd.h> 263 264 int main(int argc, char *argv[]) 265 { 266 printf("Hello world!\n"); 267 sleep(999999999); 268 } 269 EOF 270 gcc -static hello.c -o init 271 echo init | cpio -o -H newc | gzip > test.cpio.gz 272 # Testing external initramfs using the initrd loading mechanism. 273 qemu -kernel /boot/vmlinuz -initrd test.cpio.gz /dev/zero 274 275 When debugging a normal root filesystem, it's nice to be able to boot with 276 "init=/bin/sh". The initramfs equivalent is "rdinit=/bin/sh", and it's 277 just as useful. 278 279 Why cpio rather than tar? 280 ------------------------- 281 282 This decision was made back in December, 2001. The discussion started here: 283 284 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0112.2/1538.html 285 286 And spawned a second thread (specifically on tar vs cpio), starting here: 287 288 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0112.2/1587.html 289 290 The quick and dirty summary version (which is no substitute for reading 291 the above threads) is: 292 293 1) cpio is a standard. It's decades old (from the AT&T days), and already 294 widely used on Linux (inside RPM, Red Hat's device driver disks). Here's 295 a Linux Journal article about it from 1996: 296 297 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1213 298 299 It's not as popular as tar because the traditional cpio command line tools 300 require _truly_hideous_ command line arguments. But that says nothing 301 either way about the archive format, and there are alternative tools, 302 such as: 303 304 http://freecode.com/projects/afio 305 306 2) The cpio archive format chosen by the kernel is simpler and cleaner (and 307 thus easier to create and parse) than any of the (literally dozens of) 308 various tar archive formats. The complete initramfs archive format is 309 explained in buffer-format.txt, created in usr/gen_init_cpio.c, and 310 extracted in init/initramfs.c. All three together come to less than 26k 311 total of human-readable text. 312 313 3) The GNU project standardizing on tar is approximately as relevant as 314 Windows standardizing on zip. Linux is not part of either, and is free 315 to make its own technical decisions. 316 317 4) Since this is a kernel internal format, it could easily have been 318 something brand new. The kernel provides its own tools to create and 319 extract this format anyway. Using an existing standard was preferable, 320 but not essential. 321 322 5) Al Viro made the decision (quote: "tar is ugly as hell and not going to be 323 supported on the kernel side"): 324 325 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0112.2/1540.html 326 327 explained his reasoning: 328 329 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0112.2/1550.html 330 http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0112.2/1638.html 331 332 and, most importantly, designed and implemented the initramfs code. 333 334 Future directions: 335 ------------------ 336 337 Today (2.6.16), initramfs is always compiled in, but not always used. The 338 kernel falls back to legacy boot code that is reached only if initramfs does 339 not contain an /init program. The fallback is legacy code, there to ensure a 340 smooth transition and allowing early boot functionality to gradually move to 341 "early userspace" (I.E. initramfs). 342 343 The move to early userspace is necessary because finding and mounting the real 344 root device is complex. Root partitions can span multiple devices (raid or 345 separate journal). They can be out on the network (requiring dhcp, setting a 346 specific MAC address, logging into a server, etc). They can live on removable 347 media, with dynamically allocated major/minor numbers and persistent naming 348 issues requiring a full udev implementation to sort out. They can be 349 compressed, encrypted, copy-on-write, loopback mounted, strangely partitioned, 350 and so on. 351 352 This kind of complexity (which inevitably includes policy) is rightly handled 353 in userspace. Both klibc and busybox/uClibc are working on simple initramfs 354 packages to drop into a kernel build. 355 356 The klibc package has now been accepted into Andrew Morton's 2.6.17-mm tree. 357 The kernel's current early boot code (partition detection, etc) will probably 358 be migrated into a default initramfs, automatically created and used by the 359 kernel build.