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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 18:20:36 -0400
commit1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch)
tree0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/early-userspace
Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history, even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about 3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good infrastructure for it. Let it rip!
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/early-userspace')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/early-userspace/README152
-rw-r--r--Documentation/early-userspace/buffer-format.txt112
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diff --git a/Documentation/early-userspace/README b/Documentation/early-userspace/README
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1Early userspace support
2=======================
3
4Last update: 2004-12-20 tlh
5
6
7"Early userspace" is a set of libraries and programs that provide
8various pieces of functionality that are important enough to be
9available while a Linux kernel is coming up, but that don't need to be
10run inside the kernel itself.
11
12It consists of several major infrastructure components:
13
14- gen_init_cpio, a program that builds a cpio-format archive
15 containing a root filesystem image. This archive is compressed, and
16 the compressed image is linked into the kernel image.
17- initramfs, a chunk of code that unpacks the compressed cpio image
18 midway through the kernel boot process.
19- klibc, a userspace C library, currently packaged separately, that is
20 optimized for correctness and small size.
21
22The cpio file format used by initramfs is the "newc" (aka "cpio -c")
23format, and is documented in the file "buffer-format.txt". There are
24two ways to add an early userspace image: specify an existing cpio
25archive to be used as the image or have the kernel build process build
26the image from specifications.
27
28CPIO ARCHIVE method
29
30You can create a cpio archive that contains the early userspace image.
31Youre cpio archive should be specified in CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and it
32will be used directly. Only a single cpio file may be specified in
33CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and directory and file names are not allowed in
34combination with a cpio archive.
35
36IMAGE BUILDING method
37
38The kernel build process can also build an early userspace image from
39source parts rather than supplying a cpio archive. This method provides
40a way to create images with root-owned files even though the image was
41built by an unprivileged user.
42
43The image is specified as one or more sources in
44CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE. Sources can be either directories or files -
45cpio archives are *not* allowed when building from sources.
46
47A source directory will have it and all of it's contents packaged. The
48specified directory name will be mapped to '/'. When packaging a
49directory, limited user and group ID translation can be performed.
50INITRAMFS_ROOT_UID can be set to a user ID that needs to be mapped to
51user root (0). INITRAMFS_ROOT_GID can be set to a group ID that needs
52to be mapped to group root (0).
53
54A source file must be directives in the format required by the
55usr/gen_init_cpio utility (run 'usr/gen_init_cpio --help' to get the
56file format). The directives in the file will be passed directly to
57usr/gen_init_cpio.
58
59When a combination of directories and files are specified then the
60initramfs image will be an aggregate of all of them. In this way a user
61can create a 'root-image' directory and install all files into it.
62Because device-special files cannot be created by a unprivileged user,
63special files can be listed in a 'root-files' file. Both 'root-image'
64and 'root-files' can be listed in CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and a complete
65early userspace image can be built by an unprivileged user.
66
67As a technical note, when directories and files are specified, the
68entire CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE is passed to
69scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh. This means that CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE
70can really be interpreted as any legal argument to
71gen_initramfs_list.sh. If a directory is specified as an argument then
72the contents are scanned, uid/gid translation is performed, and
73usr/gen_init_cpio file directives are output. If a directory is
74specified as an arugemnt to scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh then the
75contents of the file are simply copied to the output. All of the output
76directives from directory scanning and file contents copying are
77processed by usr/gen_init_cpio.
78
79See also 'scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh -h'.
80
81Where's this all leading?
82=========================
83
84The klibc distribution contains some of the necessary software to make
85early userspace useful. The klibc distribution is currently
86maintained separately from the kernel, but this may change early in
87the 2.7 era (it missed the boat for 2.5).
88
89You can obtain somewhat infrequent snapshots of klibc from
90ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/klibc/
91
92For active users, you are better off using the klibc BitKeeper
93repositories, at http://klibc.bkbits.net/
94
95The standalone klibc distribution currently provides three components,
96in addition to the klibc library:
97
98- ipconfig, a program that configures network interfaces. It can
99 configure them statically, or use DHCP to obtain information
100 dynamically (aka "IP autoconfiguration").
101- nfsmount, a program that can mount an NFS filesystem.
102- kinit, the "glue" that uses ipconfig and nfsmount to replace the old
103 support for IP autoconfig, mount a filesystem over NFS, and continue
104 system boot using that filesystem as root.
105
106kinit is built as a single statically linked binary to save space.
107
108Eventually, several more chunks of kernel functionality will hopefully
109move to early userspace:
110
111- Almost all of init/do_mounts* (the beginning of this is already in
112 place)
113- ACPI table parsing
114- Insert unwieldy subsystem that doesn't really need to be in kernel
115 space here
116
117If kinit doesn't meet your current needs and you've got bytes to burn,
118the klibc distribution includes a small Bourne-compatible shell (ash)
119and a number of other utilities, so you can replace kinit and build
120custom initramfs images that meet your needs exactly.
121
122For questions and help, you can sign up for the early userspace
123mailing list at http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/klibc
124
125How does it work?
126=================
127
128The kernel has currently 3 ways to mount the root filesystem:
129
130a) all required device and filesystem drivers compiled into the kernel, no
131 initrd. init/main.c:init() will call prepare_namespace() to mount the
132 final root filesystem, based on the root= option and optional init= to run
133 some other init binary than listed at the end of init/main.c:init().
134
135b) some device and filesystem drivers built as modules and stored in an
136 initrd. The initrd must contain a binary '/linuxrc' which is supposed to
137 load these driver modules. It is also possible to mount the final root
138 filesystem via linuxrc and use the pivot_root syscall. The initrd is
139 mounted and executed via prepare_namespace().
140
141c) using initramfs. The call to prepare_namespace() must be skipped.
142 This means that a binary must do all the work. Said binary can be stored
143 into initramfs either via modifying usr/gen_init_cpio.c or via the new
144 initrd format, an cpio archive. It must be called "/init". This binary
145 is responsible to do all the things prepare_namespace() would do.
146
147 To remain backwards compatibility, the /init binary will only run if it
148 comes via an initramfs cpio archive. If this is not the case,
149 init/main.c:init() will run prepare_namespace() to mount the final root
150 and exec one of the predefined init binaries.
151
152Bryan O'Sullivan <bos@serpentine.com>
diff --git a/Documentation/early-userspace/buffer-format.txt b/Documentation/early-userspace/buffer-format.txt
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1 initramfs buffer format
2 -----------------------
3
4 Al Viro, H. Peter Anvin
5 Last revision: 2002-01-13
6
7Starting with kernel 2.5.x, the old "initial ramdisk" protocol is
8getting {replaced/complemented} with the new "initial ramfs"
9(initramfs) protocol. The initramfs contents is passed using the same
10memory buffer protocol used by the initrd protocol, but the contents
11is different. The initramfs buffer contains an archive which is
12expanded into a ramfs filesystem; this document details the format of
13the initramfs buffer format.
14
15The initramfs buffer format is based around the "newc" or "crc" CPIO
16formats, and can be created with the cpio(1) utility. The cpio
17archive can be compressed using gzip(1). One valid version of an
18initramfs buffer is thus a single .cpio.gz file.
19
20The full format of the initramfs buffer is defined by the following
21grammar, where:
22 * is used to indicate "0 or more occurrences of"
23 (|) indicates alternatives
24 + indicates concatenation
25 GZIP() indicates the gzip(1) of the operand
26 ALGN(n) means padding with null bytes to an n-byte boundary
27
28 initramfs := ("\0" | cpio_archive | cpio_gzip_archive)*
29
30 cpio_gzip_archive := GZIP(cpio_archive)
31
32 cpio_archive := cpio_file* + (<nothing> | cpio_trailer)
33
34 cpio_file := ALGN(4) + cpio_header + filename + "\0" + ALGN(4) + data
35
36 cpio_trailer := ALGN(4) + cpio_header + "TRAILER!!!\0" + ALGN(4)
37
38
39In human terms, the initramfs buffer contains a collection of
40compressed and/or uncompressed cpio archives (in the "newc" or "crc"
41formats); arbitrary amounts zero bytes (for padding) can be added
42between members.
43
44The cpio "TRAILER!!!" entry (cpio end-of-archive) is optional, but is
45not ignored; see "handling of hard links" below.
46
47The structure of the cpio_header is as follows (all fields contain
48hexadecimal ASCII numbers fully padded with '0' on the left to the
49full width of the field, for example, the integer 4780 is represented
50by the ASCII string "000012ac"):
51
52Field name Field size Meaning
53c_magic 6 bytes The string "070701" or "070702"
54c_ino 8 bytes File inode number
55c_mode 8 bytes File mode and permissions
56c_uid 8 bytes File uid
57c_gid 8 bytes File gid
58c_nlink 8 bytes Number of links
59c_mtime 8 bytes Modification time
60c_filesize 8 bytes Size of data field
61c_maj 8 bytes Major part of file device number
62c_min 8 bytes Minor part of file device number
63c_rmaj 8 bytes Major part of device node reference
64c_rmin 8 bytes Minor part of device node reference
65c_namesize 8 bytes Length of filename, including final \0
66c_chksum 8 bytes Checksum of data field if c_magic is 070702;
67 otherwise zero
68
69The c_mode field matches the contents of st_mode returned by stat(2)
70on Linux, and encodes the file type and file permissions.
71
72The c_filesize should be zero for any file which is not a regular file
73or symlink.
74
75The c_chksum field contains a simple 32-bit unsigned sum of all the
76bytes in the data field. cpio(1) refers to this as "crc", which is
77clearly incorrect (a cyclic redundancy check is a different and
78significantly stronger integrity check), however, this is the
79algorithm used.
80
81If the filename is "TRAILER!!!" this is actually an end-of-archive
82marker; the c_filesize for an end-of-archive marker must be zero.
83
84
85*** Handling of hard links
86
87When a nondirectory with c_nlink > 1 is seen, the (c_maj,c_min,c_ino)
88tuple is looked up in a tuple buffer. If not found, it is entered in
89the tuple buffer and the entry is created as usual; if found, a hard
90link rather than a second copy of the file is created. It is not
91necessary (but permitted) to include a second copy of the file
92contents; if the file contents is not included, the c_filesize field
93should be set to zero to indicate no data section follows. If data is
94present, the previous instance of the file is overwritten; this allows
95the data-carrying instance of a file to occur anywhere in the sequence
96(GNU cpio is reported to attach the data to the last instance of a
97file only.)
98
99c_filesize must not be zero for a symlink.
100
101When a "TRAILER!!!" end-of-archive marker is seen, the tuple buffer is
102reset. This permits archives which are generated independently to be
103concatenated.
104
105To combine file data from different sources (without having to
106regenerate the (c_maj,c_min,c_ino) fields), therefore, either one of
107the following techniques can be used:
108
109a) Separate the different file data sources with a "TRAILER!!!"
110 end-of-archive marker, or
111
112b) Make sure c_nlink == 1 for all nondirectory entries.