Re: [gentoo-server] LVM not working after reboot

Quoting Thomas Smith <tom@××××××××××××××.org>:
> I've begun looking into how to create an initrd image so I can modify
> the stock Gentoo one to include the RAID and LVM drivers--any pointers
> to docs that will help me along this path are appreciated.

Altering the initrd LVM creates would probably work.  After you un-gzip the
initrd, you have a ordinary file containing an ext2 filesystem.  You can mount
it with -o loop and copy in additional files like raidstart and whatever it
depends on.  You can use ldd to figure out if there are libraries that need to
be copied in as well.  Finally, the linuxrc file in the root of the initrd is
just a small script that runs before the kernel tries mounting the real root. 
The linuxrc that comes with an LVM initrd looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
/bin/mount /proc
/sbin/vgscan
/sbin/vgchange -a y
/bin/umount /proc

All this does is get LVM running to the point where the lvm devices exist and
work.  vgscan finds all the attached volume groups, then vgchange activates them
for use by the kernel when it mounts root.  Likewise, if you need to start raid
before the kernel starts mounting, you could just add raidstart to that script
and copy in the binary so that it starts before the kernel tries to mount.  Once
your initrd is set up like you want it, just unmount it and re-gzip it.  If you
need more room to copy stuff in, resize2fs should be able to make the image
larger while it's unmounted.

-Andy

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