Datasheet

“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 254 — #280

Creating an initrd

An initrd is created by means of the script mkinitrd (previously mk_-

initrd). In SUSE LINUX, the modules to load are speciﬁed by the variable

INITRD_MODULES in /etc/sysconfig/kernel. After installation, this

variable is automatically set to the correct value (the installation linuxrc

saves which modules were loaded). The modules are loaded in exactly the

order in which they appear in INITRD_MODULES. This is especially impor-

tant if several SCSI drivers are used, because otherwise the names of the

hard disks would change. Strictly speaking, it would be sufﬁcient just to

load those drivers needed to access the root ﬁle system. However, all SCSI

drivers needed for installation are loaded by means of initrd because

later loading could be problematic.

Note

As the initrd is loaded by the boot loader in the same way

as the kernel itself (in its map ﬁle, LILO records the location of

the ﬁles), the boot loader LILO must be updated every time the

initrd is modiﬁed. This is not necessary for GRUB.

Note

254 10.3. Booting with the Initial RAM Disk