MKINITCPIO(5)

NAME
mkinitcpio - Create an initial ramdisk environment

SYNOPSIS

mkinitcpio [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

Creates an initial ramdisk environment for booting the linux kernel. The initial ramdisk is in essence a very small environment (early userspace) which loads various kernel modules and sets up necessary things before handing over control to init. This makes it possible to have, for example, encrypted root filesystems and root filesystems on a software RAID array. mkinitcpio allows for easy extension with custom hooks, has autodetection at runtime, and many other features.

OPTIONS

-b basedir
    Use basedir as a starting point for gathering information about the currently running system. Default: /.

-c config
    Use config file to generate the ramdisk. Default: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

-g filename
    Generate a CPIO image as filename. Default: no; this means nothing will be written to the filesystem unless this option is specified.

-H hookname
    Output help for hookname hookname.

-h
    Output a short overview of available command-line switches.

-k kernelversion
    Use kernelversion, instead of the current running kernel. This may be a path to a kernel image or a specific kernel version. If specified as a path to an image, this will always be prefixed by the basedir.

-L
    List all available hooks.

-M
    Display modules found via autodetection. mkinitcpio will automatically try to determine which kernel modules are needed to start your computer. This option lists which modules were detected.

-n
    Disable color output.

-p preset
    Build initramfs image(s) according to specified preset. This may be a file in /etc/mkinitcpio.d (without the .preset extension) or a full, absolute path to a file.

-S hooks
    Skip hooks when generating the image. Several hooks should be comma-separated.

-s
    Saves the build directory for the initial ramdisk. Default: no; This means the directory will not be retained if this option isn’t specified. Useful for debugging purposes.

-t tmpdir
    Use tmpdir as the temporary build directory instead of /tmp. tmpdir must exist.

-v
    Verbose output. Outputs more information about what’s happening during creation of the ramdisk.

-z compress
    Override the compression method with the compress program.

ABOUT HOOKS

A hook is a script that executes in the initial ramdisk. Scripts are listed in order of execution as a space separated string in the HOOKS variable in the mkinitcpio configuration file. Hooks can, for example, set up the udev device filesystem, load IDE modules, etc.

ABOUT PRESETS

A preset is a pre-defined definition on how to create an initial ramdisk. Instead of specifying the configuration file and which output file, every time you generate a new initial ramdisk, you define a preset and use the -p switch to generate an initial ramdisk according to your preset. Presets are located in /etc/mkinitcpio.d

FILES

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
    Default configuration file for mkinitcpio.

/etc/mkinitcpio.d
    Folder containing mkinitcpio presets.

/lib/initcpio
    Files related to creating an initial ramdisk.

EXAMPLES

mkinitcpio
    Perform a dry-run. This will generate an initial ramdisk but will not write anything. Use -g to create the real image.

mkinitcpio -p kernel26
    Create an initial ramdisk based on the kernel26 preset.

mkinitcpio -b /mnt -g /mnt/boot/kernel26.img -k /boot/vmlinuz26
    Create an initial ramdisk for the root at /mnt, with the kernel at /mnt/boot/vmlinuz26. The resulting image will be written to /mnt/boot/kernel26.img.

SEE ALSO

A more thorough article on configuring mkinitcpio: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Configuring_mkinitcpio

initrd(4)

BUGS

Upon writing this manpage, there were no noticeable bugs present. Please visit http://bugs.archlinux.org/ for an up to date list.

AUTHORS

mkinitcpio is created by the Arch Linux Developer community.

Manpage written by

        • Glenn RedShift Matthys <glenn@opengate.be>

Manpage contributions by

        • Jens byte Adam <j_adam@web.de>

        • Geir gejr Vaagland

        • Joerie Thralas de Gram <j.de.gram@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) Arch Linux