Gentoo Archives: gentoo-genkernel

From: "Amadeusz Żołnowski" <aidecoe@g.o>
To: gentoo-genkernel <gentoo-genkernel@l.g.o>
Cc: alexxy <alexxy@g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-genkernel] Genkernel / Dracut / ZFS, where to start?
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:50:21
Message-Id: 1309775138-sup-5223@ittemni
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-genkernel] Genkernel / Dracut / ZFS, where to start? by Zachary Bedell
1 Hello Zac,
2
3 Please follow 72 columns standard in e-mail. :-)
4
5 Regarding mdev, it was not even taken into account when writing Dracut.
6 It is very possible that issues arise in such a combination.
7
8 I haven't reviewed your code yet, but from what you've described, seems
9 to be great work! When I find some more time, I'll review the code and
10 think how it's best to import it. Please also contact Alexey Shvetsov
11 <alexxy@g.o>. He's working on bringing ZFS to Gentoo. I'm
12 CC'ing this reply to him. (That's why I'm top-posting, don't beat me
13 guys!)
14
15 Thank you for sharing your work and such a good summary!
16
17
18 Cheers,
19 aidecoe
20
21
22 Excerpts from Zachary Bedell's message of Sun Jul 03 22:37:18 +0200 2011:
23 > Alas, here I am self-replying a few hours later...
24 >
25 > I figured out how to get everything running properly with the Dracut
26 > initramfs, though I'm afraid I'm stuck at the 6th stage of debugging
27 > [1] on this one... My system didn't have udev set to start at any
28 > runlevel. Adding it to boot made everything work properly with both
29 > the Dracut and classic initramfs. I haven't the slightest idea how it
30 > worked with the classic Genkernel initramfs, but I guess I'll take
31 > it...
32 >
33 > So all told, I have some genkernel patches and some ZFS patches (all
34 > for the Dracut module) to contribute. I'll pass along the ZFS changes
35 > upstream, though I'm not sure if that's something that Dracut would
36 > eventually want to pull in? I think for the time being given that
37 > ZFSonLinux is rather actively evolving, it might make sense to leave
38 > the modules over there until things quiet down a bit. As it is, if
39 > you install the Dracut branch of Genkernel, Dracut itself, and the git
40 > version of ZFS, all of the files end up in the right places so
41 > everything works together. Merging them into Dracut probably doesn't
42 > buy anything right now.
43 >
44 > Patches are attached, and everything's in a public git repo if some
45 > other format is desired. For the record, this is all released under
46 > GPL-2 or any later version at your option.
47 >
48 > As far as a summary of changes, here's what I ended up doing:
49 >
50 > https://github.com/pendor/gentoo-zfs-overlay/, branch master
51 > ebuild: (Versus the stock -9999 ebuild in portage)
52 > * Change git to dracut branch of forked repo
53 > * Add dep for Dracut
54 > * Add use flag based dep for ZFS (explicit on -9999 version for now
55 > as there's been no release with the necessary changes)
56 >
57 >
58 > https://github.com/pendor/genkernel-zfs, branch dracut
59 > genkernel: (Versus dracut branch from git.overlays.gentoo.org)
60 > * Remove -nonet flag from xsltproc call (couldn't build with it set)
61 > * Add 'zfs' to list of Dracut modules in gen_dracut.sh
62 > * Add '--zfs' flag to command line & ZFS setting to conf file, update
63 > docs to match.
64 > * Pass log level to Dracut based on Genkernel's log level
65 > * Try to catch Dracut failures and die rather than reporting success
66 > after broken initramfs.
67 >
68 >
69 > I also made some minor changes to the zfs-9999 ebuild originally taken
70 > from the Science overlay. The most important is the creation of
71 > /etc/hostid if it doesn't exist as Gentoo's hostid binary doesn't
72 > appear to write that file if it doesn't exist.
73 >
74 > Best regards,
75 > Zac Bedell
76 >
77 >
78 > [1] http://mark.aufflick.com/blog/2005/11/10/six-stages-of-debugging
79 >
80 > On Jul 3, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Zachary Bedell wrote:
81 > > I've managed to make a bit of progress with getting
82 > > Genkernel/Dracut/ZFS to all play nicely together. I'm running into
83 > > some trouble with devices after the initramfs is actually done, and
84 > > I'm not sure if I'm just hitting the current limitations of the
85 > > Genkernel/Dracut branch or if there's something silly I might be
86 > > doing. My first suspicion is that Dracut's using udev while the
87 > > rest of my system is setup for mdev is probably the source of my
88 > > issues, but my knowledge of the various device manager packages is
89 > > pretty limited at this point.

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