`initramfs` discussion

initramfs discussion

1/4 Life•35d ago

Alright, starting to look into how we can do initramfs better this interests you @j0rge since you get your rainbow dinosaur for free Basically, we need a way to grab the initramfs.img file and modify it as an action or as part of the containerfile Looking into a few ways to do this, one concept I have is to mount the .img file and modify it directly

Noel•35d ago

are we thinking this would be easier to do as part of the ISO build process? or in the container itself?

1/4 Life•35d ago

container itself this saves the 20+ minutes on bazzite and will help nvidia users if we can load the nvidia driver into initramfs without the 20 minute wait also useful for branding (since we can load our watermark in without rebuilding initramfs) and useful for encryption (Since we can add the tpm/other modules)

Noel•35d ago

would that get rid of the need for using mokutil to load the key?

1/4 Life•35d ago

that would not, that's motherboard -> loaded image outside of initramfs but it would mean functional encryption with just initramfs-etc and not the full 20+ minute initramfs feature of ostree lsinitrd is handy for this, it's able to list everything in the initramfs.img file uses cpio to do it, so it shouldn't be too hard to copy from that, extract with cpio, and recreate when done making changes

M2•35d ago

you think unpack, inject, repack would be easier than running dracut as part of the build process?

1/4 Life•35d ago

that already happens in bazzite when we install the kernel, but it doesn't pick up our changes worth trying a manual run

M2•35d ago

Where do you all do the kernel stuff right now?

1/4 Life•35d ago

near top of our containerfile, installing a new kernel does initramfs

M2•35d ago

https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/actions/runs/8641069139/job/23690555718#step:11:683 it fails to write the image to /boot

1/4 Life•35d ago

so it does, haven't bothered w/ it due to us always rebuilding so if we can fix that to write to the proper location and manual-execute that may be enough

M2•35d ago

https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/actions/runs/8641069139/job/23690555718#step:11:758 Seems to have a write location in /tmp while building that tmp location is where it's doing the copy for microcode in as well. I'm unsure why boot isn't writeable

1/4 Life•35d ago

that initramfs file should live in /usr/lib/modules so we could copy it there

M2•35d ago

also complaining about /root (might need to do a bind mount of /var/root to /root. But I think that is just build log of dracut yepp you got it. We need to force the location to /lib/modules/$kver/initramfs.img sha256sum matches on boot and that found inside of ostree deploy as wel looks like it would need a manual run since when called as dracut, it will immediately drop privileges to prevent overwriting

1/4 Life•35d ago

yeah that's fine, we'd have to manual run anyway for nvidia builds and it looks like adding the modules we need is trivial now that we use dracut nice, this is a W

M2•35d ago

Looks like we just use a specified /tmp/dracut for build location. If we manually call as root it will still autocopy to the correct to kernel version as well! so here is my quick idea:

#!/usr/bin/bash

set -oue pipefail

if [[ "${AKMODS_FLAVOR}" == "surface" ]]; then
    KERNEL_NAME=kernel-surface
else
    KERNEL_NAME=kernel
fi

KERNEL="$(rpm -q "${KERNEL_NAME}" --queryformat '%{FEDORA_VERSION}-%{RELEASE}.%{ARCH}')"
/usr/libexec/rpm-ostree/wrapped/dracut --no-hostonly --kver "${KERNEL}"  --reproducible -v --add ostree -f /tmp/dracut

#!/usr/bin/bash

set -oue pipefail

if [[ "${AKMODS_FLAVOR}" == "surface" ]]; then
    KERNEL_NAME=kernel-surface
else
    KERNEL_NAME=kernel
fi

KERNEL="$(rpm -q "${KERNEL_NAME}" --queryformat '%{FEDORA_VERSION}-%{RELEASE}.%{ARCH}')"
/usr/libexec/rpm-ostree/wrapped/dracut --no-hostonly --kver "${KERNEL}"  --reproducible -v --add ostree -f /tmp/dracut

1/4 Life•35d ago

could probably even toss this in libexec in main so everything that builds from it has it available to use

M2•35d ago

well we won't have AKMODS variable....

1/4 Life•35d ago

ah true, in that case as a file in main that can be grabbed I do that for nvidia drivers by pulling the script from HWE or also in HWE

M2•35d ago

only reason I wouldn't want to put this into libexec is that clients should be using rpm-ostree initramfs at that point or initramfs-etc since we are going around ostree here maybe? would definitely be curious on what happens in a VM Uhmm rpm-ostree wrapped is not default..... So guess that needs to be added to bluefin Oh it's that cliwrap rpm-ostree cliwrap install-to-root / is needed... which then gives us real dracut while bluefin has real dracut already

Noel•35d ago

@Kyle Gospo would we want to figure this out before spinning new ISOs for Bazzite? or is flatpak support enough to justify new ISOs? would be awfully nice to have this in to make the install experience that much better.

1/4 Life•35d ago

@M2 https://github.com/EyeCantCU/kernel-signer/blob/main/sign-kernel.sh

GitHub

kernel-signer/sign-kernel.sh at main · EyeCantCU/kernel-signer

Contribute to EyeCantCU/kernel-signer development by creating an account on GitHub.

1/4 Life•35d ago

this has a good generic way to get the current kernel and then I think we just make it so --add can have additional params passed into it, and toss this into HWE then anyone can grab it & execute it bazzite would need to run it 2x, once in the base build and then again at the end of the nvidia build

M2•35d ago

for us, I think we should use /usr/lib/dracut.conf.d files or /etc/dracut.conf.d since we control the image.

1/4 Life•35d ago

that's fair Okay, once I'm done with my lunch walk here I'm going to go ahead and give this a try Did you spend any more time on this after this convo @M2 ? Just want to make sure we're not wasting effort doing the same thing

M2•35d ago

nope doing work work just made the script and saw that the sha256sums matched in /tmp/dracut and /lib/modules/$kver/initramfs.img and then on my machine that matched what I had in /boot/

1/4 Life•35d ago

Awesome, I'll play with it then Ty! @M2 @j0rge Bazzite testing built w/ that script 🙂 initramfs generation was successful just need to verify it made it to the right place That also means you can have your branding now without the headache @j0rge

j0rge•35d ago

yeah, raven bird ftw are we sure we wanna do this for F40? Please don't say "but we have an extra week"

1/4 Life•35d ago

we can add at any time, it's just part of the image no rush

j0rge•35d ago

1/4 Life•35d ago

I'm doing it tho, the old shit took way too long and makes a lot of tickets

j0rge•35d ago

I agree people think it's broken yeah I'm down, just saying, you know what work needs to be done, don't crush yourself

p5•35d ago

For the people who don't know what initramfs is, what will this allow us to do?

1/4 Life•35d ago

add modules loaded at boot time (nvidia drivers, tpm, etc) brand plymouth

Noel•35d ago

Are you gonna test with an ISO? I can help @Kyle Gospo

p5•35d ago

Oh cool! So no just script to setup Nvidia?

1/4 Life•35d ago

yep

Noel•35d ago

I wanna see how much faster it really is >:)

M2•35d ago

You basically won't need to use a locally built initramfs. Enable support for tpm/fido so only need to do cryptenroll. Nvidia can do early KMS and not fallback to text mode on boot. And no wait for initramfs setup on boot.

1/4 Life•35d ago

@M2 dracut: Creating initramfs image file '/tmp/dracut' done Did you say we didn't need to move that file? Or we did?

M2•35d ago

I didn't move it. And that file and /usr/lib/modules/$kver/initramfs.img had same sha256sum

1/4 Life•35d ago

Sweet

M2•35d ago

You can do a sanity check with lsinitrd in a container to make sure dracutmodules are there and the Nvidia libs

1/4 Life•34d ago

1/4 Life•34d ago

Logos worked, no go on the modules though nvm might have found what I did wrong there

HikariKnight•34d ago

since i havent used initramfs-etc, will that still require some kind of rebuild whenever a dracut.conf file is added to /etc/dracut.conf.d/? asking since both vfio and kvmfr will be adding configs 🙂

1/4 Life•34d ago

yes, same as before only much, much faster also existing installs aren't getting touched so if you use initramfs today, you'll keep doing so unless you explicitly turn it off yourself and we can easily add new modules to initramfs in the future

HikariKnight•34d ago

ok so we just need to adjust bazzite-hardware-setup then so touching rebuild will account for it maybe write a migration guide to move people over to initramfs-etc too (or an ujust if possible)

M2•34d ago

Somethings seem to work fine with initramfs-etc. Modprobe works. Install items inside of /etc worked. But dracutmodules misbehaved. For dracut modules there is a force add as well.

HikariKnight•34d ago

well that is problematic as i know i need dracut modules working for my stuff 😅

M2•34d ago

Vfio/kvmfr are both modprobes. Which dracutmodules do you still need?

HikariKnight•34d ago

ah nvm then i mixed up dracut modules and modprobes 😅

M2•34d ago

@Kyle Gospo you have the conf file in the wrong spot. Maybe it's corrected. But it should be in /usr/lib/dracut/dracut.conf.d/ Additionally, we don't have dracut-clevis installed so clevis module will fail the build. finally, we can specify a different compression scheme as well. By default it is using pigz for some reason I see that you got the location fixed. Just removed clevis. Will probably consider including that on bluefin if it isn't already

1/4 Life•34d ago

Is it worth installing it or should we not bother? I will look into zstd

M2•34d ago

I don't think we should bother. We don't have the networking modules enabled either so tang decryption wouldn't work. Fido2/TPM2 would be hardware enablement. pkcs11 and pcscd could also work for smartcard decryption (but seriously, who is doing that?) For compression: it means the initramfs needs to be decompressed by the kernel. Arch defaults to zstd, Debian defaults to xz. The atomic images defaults to 1 GB in /boot. With 3 deployments, I'm only using 158 MB so, defaults might be fine. Personally just find it weird that it defaults to pigz. To improve boot times, we could look at not compressing the initramfs Uncompressed the thing is 169 MB. Nvidia would be an issue zstd is 127 MB Default is about 130 MB. Zstd compresses faster, Uncompressed is 39 MB more but should be quicker to boot YubiKeys can do pkcs11

1/4 Life•34d ago

we have a winner!

M2•34d ago

Want to add pkcs11 and pcscd as well for YubiKey smartcard functionality?

1/4 Life•34d ago

please

M2•34d ago

Done

1/4 Life•34d ago

beautiful

bsherman•34d ago

👀🍿

1/4 Life•34d ago

This can be done in the HWE images so Nvidia gets it's modules loaded during boot

M2•34d ago

That would mean having cliwrap for all of our images But honestly would resolve the majority case for when people need to do initramfs @Kyle Gospo have you tried these or just building?

1/4 Life•34d ago

pic is me actively running bazzite:testing on my desktop

1/4 Life•34d ago

look ma, no more rpm-ostree initramfs

M2•34d ago

yepp, we'll need cliwrap. The dracut that is on bluefin isn't copying over to the right place compared to bazzite

bsherman•34d ago

so this is an added step in the build_image job after building the image but before pushing? or... a new final step in the Containerfile? i haven't read any commits about this yet, just asking for clarity

1/4 Life•34d ago

One additional script you run in your container file at any point

p5•34d ago

Was having a look at this. How does the built file go from /tmp/dracut to the live system? Tmp is cleared out, so this is confusing me a bit https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/blob/main/scripts%2Finitramfs.sh#L11

GitHub

bazzite/scripts/initramfs.sh at main · ublue-os/bazzite

Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices - including your favorite handheld. - ublue-os/bazzite

1/4 Life•34d ago

I need to look at the code generating this, but what appears to be happening is it tries to put it into a folder that doesn't exist at container build time, so tossing it into temp means it's successful, and then it also places it into the system folders where ostree actually makes use of it Granted this could change, but either way we have what we need here

M2•34d ago

We also would need to enable CLI wrap for the other images. It is definitely interesting that this works though. Without clip wrap, I didn't see the initramfs getting copied correctly.

1/4 Life•34d ago

@M2 This may be safer

QUALIFIED_KERNEL="$(rpm -qa | grep -P 'kernel-(|'"$KERNEL_SUFFIX"'-)(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)' | sed -E 's/kernel-(|'"$KERNEL_SUFFIX"'-)//')"
/usr/libexec/rpm-ostree/wrapped/dracut --no-hostonly --kver "$QUALIFIED_KERNEL" --reproducible -v --add ostree -f "/lib/modules/$QUALIFIED_KERNEL/initramfs.img"

assuming it builds

M2•34d ago

if that seems to work, maybe we don't have to enable cliwrap and can use dracut directly on everything else.

1/4 Life•34d ago

 dracut: *** Creating image file '/usr/lib/modules/6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64/initramfs.img' ***
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file '/usr/lib/modules/6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64/initramfs.img' done ***

 dracut: *** Creating image file '/usr/lib/modules/6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64/initramfs.img' ***
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file '/usr/lib/modules/6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64/initramfs.img' done ***

didn't complain about it 🙂

p5•34d ago

If you run this once (e.g. in an upstream image), are you then able to drop in the configuration in dracut.conf.d in downstream images, or would you need to rerun the dracut in every image that touches the config?

1/4 Life•34d ago

re-run in anything that touches a config but with the exception of Nvidia HWE all that really could use this are downstream to begin with IE: Bazzite & Bluefin Nvidia HWE is just nice to have because you want your Nvidia drivers at boot time

Noel•34d ago

@Kyle Gospo Are we thinking that these changes (and ISO changes) will be merged into main by middle of week next week? I'm just trying to plan my presentation next weekend.

1/4 Life•34d ago

hope so

1/4 Life•34d ago

https://github.com/ublue-os/bluefin/pull/1127

GitHub

feat: Add initramfs generation by KyleGospo · Pull Request #1127 · ...

TODO: Copy files from system_files/nvidia/shared/* into the image only for Nvidia builds

M2•34d ago

If this was in config we would enable decryption methods and Nvidia. Bluefin/Aurora/Bazzite would then be rebuilding for branding the initramfs

1/4 Life•34d ago

@j0rge ^

j0rge•34d ago

what's the tldr on this? I don't know much about initramfs

1/4 Life•34d ago

Can you send me that dark dinosaur you wanted @ boot? tldr is now nvidia can load drivers at boot, and we can support unlock methods like TPM & Yubi Keys

j0rge•34d ago

sec

1/4 Life•34d ago

and you can have your branding without the downsides no 20 minute wait on first boot

j0rge•34d ago

is the only purpose branding? what else does it do?

HikariKnight•34d ago

whenever something needs to be modprobed at boot it doesnt take a full rebuild of initramfs to enable it

j0rge•34d ago

k is it supposed to still be draft?

1/4 Life•34d ago

yeah, there's a todo in there for nvidia

j0rge•34d ago

oh I see it

1/4 Life•34d ago

since those images need extra files added to them so they try to load the driver

Noel•34d ago

priorities!

j0rge•34d ago

don't make it too big, smaller is better, subtle.

1/4 Life•34d ago

it's quite tiny

1/4 Life•34d ago

j0rge•34d ago

baby murder chicken

1/4 Life•34d ago

Bluefin

1/4 Life•34d ago

M2•34d ago

That's looking good. We can probably just put a cleanup of Nvidia stuff inside the initramfs script. Just delete the files then run

1/4 Life•34d ago

Sounds great

j0rge•34d ago

Oh I see, it builds it as part of the image instead on boot

1/4 Life•34d ago

Yep, no more 20 minute wait Now we get our branding and novideo users get a better experience for free

j0rge•34d ago

do you have this in bazzite already?

HikariKnight•34d ago

and enables us to use initramfs-etc which is way faster when we need to tack on other things (ex: vfio and kvmfr and other stuff)

1/4 Life•34d ago

In testing

M2•33d ago

Yeah this kinda was figured out over the past 48 hours @Kyle Gospo before merging in the initramfs on bluefin I want to make sure that I think we need to look at the bluefin hardware setup script as well. Make sure kargs aren't being set since Nvidia modprobe arguments are now handled by initramfs @Kyle Gospo if you can check that using modprobe for amd legacy gpu devices works (I believe this is how it is setup in Bazzite) I think initramfs is good for merging

j0rge•33d ago

https://github.com/ublue-os/config/issues/250 putting this in here

M2•33d ago

I just added it to the hardware setup. I've not noticed needing that with my Nvidia Machine

1/4 Life•33d ago

@M2 looks great to me, approving or wait I can't, it's mine lol

M2•33d ago

I will approve, I just want a double check on all the stuff I did

1/4 Life•33d ago

yup, looks great to me nothing stands out as wrong

M2•33d ago

okay did you see the simple drm stuff being talked about? It has a very different karg. One that is actually for the kernel and not being passed to modprobe

j0rge•33d ago

@Kyle Gospo @M2 thank you for making the goth chicken a reality.

M2•33d ago

@j0rge you'll need to approve.... Apparently github is smart enough to recognize I've added a ton of stuff to it weirldy, the button came back after you hit approve..... So 3 approves

j0rge•33d ago

we had a required check for aurora even though I was only modding bluefin files so it never passed, will investigate later merged it for now and then this one will autorebuild everything anyway

M2•33d ago

Yeah, we need to improve the logic on these automerge checks. I have it so workflows will not run if the file changes are only in the other one's file path. Aurora changes don't effect Bluefin changes.

p5•33d ago

Might simply need a step in Aurora and Bluefin to exit (and skip future steps) when an unrelated change is made, rather than having the logic via triggers. The workflow will then run (and satisfy the required workflows) but not waste time building the wrong image.

M2•33d ago

That might effect build badges

p5•33d ago

I would expect the badges to only look at runs on main? These workflows are ran on PRs, so I don't think it would change badges. Builds on main are all scheduled (and manual) ones, so this logic to skip builds will not be used. After the initramfs change, I finally have my LUKS graphical prompt screen back! 🎉 Once rolled out to Bazzite, it should resolve this issue https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/831

M2•32d ago

And reduce setting kargs. And we can steer people to using cryptenroll for luks decryption with tpm2, fido, or pkcs11 With no local initramfs, I have a branded Plymouth and tpm2 unlock works

M2•32d ago

HikariKnight•31d ago

ok so since i never used initramfs-etc, is it all automatic when we add conf files to /etc/dracut.conf.d/ or do we have to issue a rpm-ostree initramfs-etc --track="/etc/dracut.conf.d/foo.conf"? or would it just be easier to do rpm-ostree initramfs-etc --track="/etc/dracut.conf.d" in bazzite-hardware-setup and just issue a rpm-ostree initramfs-etc --force-sync whenever a conf file has been added? since i have some guides i will have to update/rewrite now 🙂

M2•31d ago

need to manually specify tracking for the folder /etc/dracut.conf.d and /etc/modprobe.d

HikariKnight•31d ago

yeah so we should really do that by default then so the user just need to think about rpm-ostree initramfs-etc --force-sync for simplicity will play a bit around with it next week

M2•31d ago

while it's fast, unless a person needs it, nothing actually gets added

HikariKnight•31d ago

vfio and kvmfr will need it if someone needs to add a modprobe file they need it (which is the more likely scenario)

M2•31d ago

If they have their own initramfs initramfs-etc is not compatible Only downside for turning on by default

HikariKnight•31d ago

atm they are 100% dracut files but they touch the now obsolete rebuild file the documentation on discourse about initramfs is also a bit outdated referencing the same file too (but i edited it beforehand to remove all the custom stuff and only describe how to add dracut configs and modprobe)

M2•31d ago

That's good, but if a user is using clevis that won't work with etc Probably should just add it We should add it in config or main i just opened a PR

fiftydinar•30d ago

Very nice work on this one! I think that .conf files must be specified that folders are ignored but I could be wrong

M2•30d ago

Yeah, I hesitate to recommend a default. initramfs can do things that initramfs-etc cannot do.

fiftydinar•30d ago

correction: only files are supported, extension doesn't matter for initramfs-etc --track

HikariKnight•30d ago

thats all i need to know then, just have to set the commands to track the files, force sync, untrack files and force sync again

fiftydinar•30d ago

Mine does that automatically, if you wish to look Although, I use force sync only when rebuild file is "touched" I'm not sure if force sync is needed for tracking & untracking files But my script can be easily modified to include force sync there if needed

HikariKnight•30d ago

ok if force sync is only needed when rebuilding then even better 😄

fiftydinar•30d ago

@M2 Are you sure that this modprobe for NVK is working? options nouveau config=NvGspRm=1 Format looks odd to me. Based on modprobe docs, something like this is more correct: options driver option=value

1/4 Life•30d ago

that line is from me and it's correct as odd as it looks

1/4 Life•30d ago

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/PowerManagement.html

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`initramfs` discussion