On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Michael Cashwell wrote: > On Dec 4, 2007, at 6:16 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > > toward the bottom of init/initramfs.c, we can see that the in-kernel > > initramfs is getting "unpacked", followed by the unpacking of an option > > external initrd of some format. but what are those things getting unpacked > > *into*? > > > > i'm assuming there's an early ramfs that's created by the kernel that all > > this content is being placed in, but where exactly is that ramfs created? > > that is, at what step in the early kernel booting? > > thanks. ... > > Uncompressing > > Linux............................................................................. > > done, > > > booting the kernel. ... snip ... > > NET: Registered protocol family 16 > > OMAP DMA hardware version 1 > > DMA capabilities: 000c0000:00000000:01ff:003f:007f > > Time: mpu_timer2 clocksource has been installed. > > Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 0 > > ... > > I think the boot-loader-supplied initrd content is copied into a > ramdisk at /dev/ram and then that boot-loader provided memory is > freed into the slab handler for the first time: > > > checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (bad gzip magic numbers); looks > > like an initrd > > Freeing initrd memory: 5472K > > ... all right, let me make sure i understand what's happening here. if you look at the tail end of init/initramfs.c, you can see in the routine populate_rootfs() where that "checking if image is initramfs..." message is being printed. but *above* that, there has *already* been a call to unpack_to_rootfs() to unpack the in-kernel cpio initramfs (the very first thing in that routine, in fact). so the question remains -- what was *that* unpacked into? are you saying it was an initial /dev/ram? if so, when was that created during the boot process? is this question making any sense? rday -- ======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA http://crashcourse.ca ======================================================================== -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
