[arch-projects] [mkinitcpio PATCH 1/3] /run/initramfs: copy the whole ramfs

[Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi]

On 11/18/2011 03:26 AM, Tom Gundersen wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 1:03 PM, Dave Reisner<d at falconindy.com>  wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 10:51:37PM -0300, Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi wrote:
>>> On 11/17/2011 10:21 PM, Dave Reisner wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 11:42:43AM +1100, Tom Gundersen wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 5:23 AM, Thomas Bächler<thomas at archlinux.org>    wrote:
>>>>>> Am 17.11.2011 18:07, schrieb Tom Gundersen:
>>>>>>> I see two potential issues: boot speed and memory use. Moving stuff
>>>>>>> around in memory should be pretty much instantaneous, and the memory
>>>>>>> (a couple of MB) will be swapped out quick enough so it shouldn't make
>>>>>>> a difference.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'd be happy to write a new patch where this is optional, but I don't
>>>>>>> think we should optimize for stuff unless we know it is a measurable
>>>>>>> problem.
>>>>>> Depending on what's in there, it could be big. For example, I once wrote
>>>>>> a hook that extracted a tarfile that was stored inside initramfs (that
>>>>>> tarfile was the whole root filesystem IIRC).
>>>>> That's something to take into consideration. I think it would be best
>>>>> if we were able to optimize the cases that need it by adding some
>>>>> exceptions to the copying, but still keep the bits needed for
>>>>> shutdown++, rather than disabling it altogether. Having huge
>>>>> initramfs' being a corner case, any workaround should of course be
>>>>> unintrusive (if that is not possible then I agree on just allowing
>>>>> this stuff to be switched off).
>>>>>
>>>>> [untested: would bindmounting a directory (like say /lib/modules) to
>>>>> itself exclude it from "cp -ax"?]
>>>> No, it won't. Generally, detection of crossing onto another mount is
>>>> done by comparing the devno of '.' to the devno of '..'. Bind mounts
>>>> aren't special in this regard -- they'll just expose the underlying
>>>> physical mount.
>>> Mmm no, you can not access to files in underliying mount from such path.
>>> Anyway the rootfs is the HEAD of vfsmount, so you can not
>>> bind/move/pivot. :P
>>> But supose that you can do a bindmount... -a is used that implies
>>> -d, that implies --preserve=links, in that case cp will fails
>>> because will try to create a link to directory. ;)
>> No, this has nothing to do with chrooting. The point is that if you're
>> walking through a directory structure for an operation that's required
>> to stay on a single filesystem, you're stat'ing every directory before
>> descending into it (my example was actually backwards). Written in
>> (probably nonworking) shell..
>>
>> walk() {
>>   local pwd_dev dir_dev
>>
>>   pwd_dev=$(stat -c %d "$1")
>>
>>   for f in *; do
>>     if [[ -d $f ]]; then
>>       dir_dev=$(stat -c "$1/$f")
>>       if (( pwd_dev != dir_dev )); then
>>         # this is a mountpoint, skip it
>>         continue
>>       fi
>>       walk "$f"
>>     else
>>       callback "$f"
>>     fi
>>   done
>> }
>>
>> walk /
>>
>>> Why no just copy the needed files? Yes needs more steps...
>> Because I don't want to have to calculate what's needed for teardown on
>> an encrypted LVM root device. Make it optional, and everything is
>> copasetic.
> Thanks for the explanations Dave and Gerardo.
>
> I agree that it would be best to just copy everything, which would not
> require us to do anything fancy.
>
> Still not sold on making it optional though. At least wait until
> someone can point to a use-case and some numbers that shows a real
> problem. If the initramfs is sufficiently huge, the time taken to copy
> it to /run would obviously be measurable. However, the time taken to
> extract the initramfs in the first place would probably dwarf this
> number.
>
> If we start making things optional we'd have something like this:
>
> copying /run/initramfs is required by "shutdown" and "shutdown" is
> required by "usr".
>
> But all users who have a separate /usr must use the "usr" hook, and
> all users really should use the "shutdown" hook. So unless we find a
> case where including a hook causes some sort of real downside I'd say
> just make it unconditional, and thereby reduce the number of
> configurations we'd have to test.
>
> > From the point of view of initscripts it would be very nice to know
> that /usr is always mounted, and if the rootfs is on lvm or something
> like that it will always be torn down properly, without worrying about
> users possibly disabling these hooks in mkinitcpio.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> -t
>
You are welcome!

Note that you can bind mount some dir (outside rootfs) for example in 
/run, the overlap /lib/modules.
Anyway the copy can be done at end of init just before switch_root, just 
after udev stopped. so you can rm -r /lib/modules ; cp -ax / /run/initramfs

PS: uncompressed archiso.img is 22M.


-- 
Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi
\cos^2\alpha + \sin^2\alpha = 1