dracut-ng

dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi All,

I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed that dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version 059 but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo was Mar 2024.

There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100 (Apr 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively maintained.

With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought dracut-ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth trying it.

Regards,

Adolf.

Re: dracut-ng

[Michael Tremer]

Hello Adolf,

Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.

Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with pretty much the same people contributing to it.

I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although it seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to indeed ship it as a drop-in.

Let us know what you find out during testing it :)

Best,
-Michael

> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed that dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version 059 but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo was Mar 2024.
> 
> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100 (Apr 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively maintained.
> 
> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought dracut-ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth trying it.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adolf.
> 
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi Michael & all,

On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
> Hello Adolf,
> 
> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
> 
> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with pretty much the same people contributing to it.
> 
> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although it seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to indeed ship it as a drop-in.
> 
> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)

So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I installed IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created the filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.

Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language cache.

So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.

Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the rootfile that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines uncommented.

It still failed exactly the same.

Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be gratefully accepted.

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> Best,
> -Michael
> 
>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed that dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version 059 but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo was Mar 2024.
>>
>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100 (Apr 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively maintained.
>>
>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought dracut-ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth trying it.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Adolf.
>>
>>
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Stefan Schantl]

Hello Adolf,
> Hi Michael & all,
> 
> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
> > Hello Adolf,
> > 
> > Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
> > 
> > Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
> > effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
> > pretty much the same people contributing to it.
> > 
> > I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although it
> > seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
> > indeed ship it as a drop-in.
> > 
> > Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
> 
> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I installed
> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created the
> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
> 
> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language cache.
> 
> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
> 
> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the rootfile
> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
> uncommented.
> 
> It still failed exactly the same.
> 
> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be gratefully
> accepted.

This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
update cache within the changed root directory.

https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763

In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part of
the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.

During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided, that
"chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.

https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da

So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of the
initramdisk.

Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should to
the trick.

Best regards,

-Stefan
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adolf.
> 
> > 
> > Best,
> > -Michael
> > 
> > > On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi All,
> > > 
> > > I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed that
> > > dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version 059
> > > but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo was
> > > Mar 2024.
> > > 
> > > There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100 (Apr
> > > 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
> > > dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
> > > maintained.
> > > 
> > > With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought dracut-
> > > ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
> > > critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
> > > anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
> > > trying it.
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Adolf.
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi Stefan,

On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> Hello Adolf,
>> Hi Michael & all,
>>
>> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>
>>> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
>>>
>>> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
>>> effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
>>> pretty much the same people contributing to it.
>>>
>>> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although it
>>> seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
>>> indeed ship it as a drop-in.
>>>
>>> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
>>
>> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I installed
>> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created the
>> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
>>
>> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language cache.
>>
>> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
>>
>> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the rootfile
>> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
>> uncommented.
>>
>> It still failed exactly the same.
>>
>> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be gratefully
>> accepted.
> 
> This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
> binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
> update cache within the changed root directory.
> 
> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
> 
> In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part of
> the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
> 
> During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided, that
> "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.
> 
> https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da

Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I had tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have had the same problem.

> 
> So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of the
> initramdisk.
> 
> Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should to
> the trick.

Giving it a try currently in a build.

Thanks very much for your help on this.

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -Stefan
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Adolf.
>>
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> -Michael
>>>
>>>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed that
>>>> dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version 059
>>>> but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo was
>>>> Mar 2024.
>>>>
>>>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100 (Apr
>>>> 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
>>>> dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
>>>> maintained.
>>>>
>>>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought dracut-
>>>> ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
>>>> critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
>>>> anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
>>>> trying it.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Adolf.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Stefan Schantl]

Hi Adolf,
> Hi Stefan,
> 
> On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> > Hello Adolf,
> > > Hi Michael & all,
> > > 
> > > On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
> > > > Hello Adolf,
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
> > > > 
> > > > Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
> > > > effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
> > > > pretty much the same people contributing to it.
> > > > 
> > > > I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although
> > > > it
> > > > seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
> > > > indeed ship it as a drop-in.
> > > > 
> > > > Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
> > > 
> > > So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
> > > installed
> > > IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created
> > > the
> > > filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
> > > 
> > > Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language
> > > cache.
> > > 
> > > So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
> > > 
> > > Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
> > > rootfile
> > > that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
> > > uncommented.
> > > 
> > > It still failed exactly the same.
> > > 
> > > Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
> > > gratefully
> > > accepted.
> > 
> > This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
> > binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
> > update cache within the changed root directory.
> > 
> > https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
> > 
> > In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part
> > of
> > the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
> > 
> > During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided,
> > that
> > "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.
> > 
> > https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
> 
> Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I had
> tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have had
> the same problem.
> 
> > 
> > So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of
> > the
> > initramdisk.
> > 
> > Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should
> > to
> > the trick.
> 
> Giving it a try currently in a build.
> 
> Thanks very much for your help on this.

I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with the
"--install" from abouve.

https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170

-Stefan
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adolf.
> 
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > 
> > -Stefan
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Adolf.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Best,
> > > > -Michael
> > > > 
> > > > > On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Hi All,
> > > > > 
> > > > > I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
> > > > > that
> > > > > dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version
> > > > > 059
> > > > > but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo
> > > > > was
> > > > > Mar 2024.
> > > > > 
> > > > > There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100
> > > > > (Apr
> > > > > 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
> > > > > dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
> > > > > maintained.
> > > > > 
> > > > > With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
> > > > > dracut-
> > > > > ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
> > > > > critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
> > > > > anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
> > > > > trying it.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > > 
> > > > > Adolf.
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi Stefan,

On 07/09/2025 19:09, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> Hi Adolf,
>> Hi Stefan,
>>
>> On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>> Hi Michael & all,
>>>>
>>>> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
>>>>>
>>>>> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
>>>>> effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
>>>>> pretty much the same people contributing to it.
>>>>>
>>>>> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although
>>>>> it
>>>>> seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
>>>>> indeed ship it as a drop-in.
>>>>>
>>>>> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
>>>>
>>>> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
>>>> installed
>>>> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created
>>>> the
>>>> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
>>>>
>>>> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language
>>>> cache.
>>>>
>>>> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
>>>>
>>>> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
>>>> rootfile
>>>> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
>>>> uncommented.
>>>>
>>>> It still failed exactly the same.
>>>>
>>>> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
>>>> gratefully
>>>> accepted.
>>>
>>> This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
>>> binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
>>> update cache within the changed root directory.
>>>
>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
>>>
>>> In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part
>>> of
>>> the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
>>>
>>> During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided,
>>> that
>>> "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.
>>>
>>> https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
>>
>> Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I had
>> tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have had
>> the same problem.
>>
>>>
>>> So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of
>>> the
>>> initramdisk.
>>>
>>> Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should
>>> to
>>> the trick.
>>
>> Giving it a try currently in a build.
>>
>> Thanks very much for your help on this.
> 
> I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with the
> "--install" from abouve.
> 
> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170

With your suggestion and a bit of searching that was where I made the change. However I am also sure that without your suggestion I would still have been looking for how to fix this for a month of Sundays.


My build is nearly finished so I will see if that fixes the install.

One question I have will I also need to apply the same change to the dracut command in linux-initrd for the image generation?

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> -Stefan
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Adolf.
>>
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> -Stefan
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Adolf.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version
>>>>>> 059
>>>>>> but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo
>>>>>> was
>>>>>> Mar 2024.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100
>>>>>> (Apr
>>>>>> 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
>>>>>> dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
>>>>>> maintained.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
>>>>>> dracut-
>>>>>> ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
>>>>>> critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
>>>>>> anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
>>>>>> trying it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi Stefan,

On 07/09/2025 19:50, Adolf Belka wrote:
> Hi Stefan,
> 
> On 07/09/2025 19:09, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>> Hi Adolf,
>>> Hi Stefan,
>>>
>>> On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>> Hi Michael & all,
>>>>>
>>>>> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
>>>>>> effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
>>>>>> pretty much the same people contributing to it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
>>>>>> indeed ship it as a drop-in.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
>>>>>
>>>>> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
>>>>> installed
>>>>> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created
>>>>> the
>>>>> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language
>>>>> cache.
>>>>>
>>>>> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
>>>>> rootfile
>>>>> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
>>>>> uncommented.
>>>>>
>>>>> It still failed exactly the same.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
>>>>> gratefully
>>>>> accepted.
>>>>
>>>> This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
>>>> binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
>>>> update cache within the changed root directory.
>>>>
>>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
>>>>
>>>> In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part
>>>> of
>>>> the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
>>>>
>>>> During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided,
>>>> that
>>>> "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
>>>
>>> Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I had
>>> tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have had
>>> the same problem.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of
>>>> the
>>>> initramdisk.
>>>>
>>>> Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should
>>>> to
>>>> the trick.
>>>
>>> Giving it a try currently in a build.
>>>
>>> Thanks very much for your help on this.
>>
>> I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with the
>> "--install" from abouve.
>>
>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170
> 
> With your suggestion and a bit of searching that was where I made the change. However I am also sure that without your suggestion I would still have been looking for how to fix this for a month of Sundays.
> 
> 
> My build is nearly finished so I will see if that fixes the install.

Thanks very much Stefan. The built version was able to successfully install a working IPFire and I could restore a previously working version.

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> One question I have will I also need to apply the same change to the dracut command in linux-initrd for the image generation?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adolf.
> 
>>
>> -Stefan
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Adolf.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>>
>>>> -Stefan
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version
>>>>>>> 059
>>>>>>> but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo
>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>> Mar 2024.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100
>>>>>>> (Apr
>>>>>>> 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
>>>>>>> dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
>>>>>>> maintained.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
>>>>>>> dracut-
>>>>>>> ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
>>>>>>> critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
>>>>>>> anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
>>>>>>> trying it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Stefan Schantl]

Hi Adolf,
> Hi Stefan,
> 
> On 07/09/2025 19:09, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> > Hi Adolf,
> > > Hi Stefan,
> > > 
> > > On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> > > > Hello Adolf,
> > > > > Hi Michael & all,
> > > > > 
> > > > > On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
> > > > > > Hello Adolf,
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut
> > > > > > has
> > > > > > effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor
> > > > > > with
> > > > > > pretty much the same people contributing to it.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I did not find any breaking changes in the change log
> > > > > > (although
> > > > > > it
> > > > > > seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance
> > > > > > to
> > > > > > indeed ship it as a drop-in.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
> > > > > 
> > > > > So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
> > > > > installed
> > > > > IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk,
> > > > > created
> > > > > the
> > > > > filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Then it failed with the message Unable to install the
> > > > > language
> > > > > cache.
> > > > > 
> > > > > So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
> > > > > rootfile
> > > > > that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
> > > > > uncommented.
> > > > > 
> > > > > It still failed exactly the same.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
> > > > > gratefully
> > > > > accepted.
> > > > 
> > > > This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the
> > > > "chroot"
> > > > binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate
> > > > the
> > > > update cache within the changed root directory.
> > > > 
> > > > https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
> > > > 
> > > > In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is
> > > > part
> > > > of
> > > > the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
> > > > 
> > > > During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers
> > > > decided,
> > > > that
> > > > "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an
> > > > initramdisk.
> > > > 
> > > > https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
> > > 
> > > Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I
> > > had
> > > tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have
> > > had
> > > the same problem.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part
> > > > of
> > > > the
> > > > initramdisk.
> > > > 
> > > > Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> "
> > > > should
> > > > to
> > > > the trick.
> > > 
> > > Giving it a try currently in a build.
> > > 
> > > Thanks very much for your help on this.
> > 
> > I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with
> > the
> > "--install" from abouve.
> > 
> > https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170
> 
> With your suggestion and a bit of searching that was where I made the
> change. However I am also sure that without your suggestion I would
> still have been looking for how to fix this for a month of Sundays.
> 
> 
> My build is nearly finished so I will see if that fixes the install.
> 
> One question I have will I also need to apply the same change to the
> dracut command in linux-initrd for the image generation?

I'm sorry, I'm unable to answer this question because I never used such
an image installation. So the best option would be to just test and see
what happened or somebody which is more familiar with the images can
bring us some light into the dark.

Best regards,

-Stefan

> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adolf.
> 
> > 
> > -Stefan
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > 
> > > Adolf.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Best regards,
> > > > 
> > > > -Stefan
> > > > > 
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > > 
> > > > > Adolf.
> > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Best,
> > > > > > -Michael
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > > On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka
> > > > > > > <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
> > > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Hi All,
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
> > > > > > > that
> > > > > > > dracut was at version 056. The source for that had
> > > > > > > version
> > > > > > > 059
> > > > > > > but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that
> > > > > > > repo
> > > > > > > was
> > > > > > > Mar 2024.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version
> > > > > > > 100
> > > > > > > (Apr
> > > > > > > 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the
> > > > > > > original
> > > > > > > dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being
> > > > > > > actively
> > > > > > > maintained.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
> > > > > > > dracut-
> > > > > > > ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut
> > > > > > > plays a
> > > > > > > critical role in the booting process I thought I would
> > > > > > > ask if
> > > > > > > anyone has any information to indicate that it is not
> > > > > > > worth
> > > > > > > trying it.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Adolf.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 

Re: dracut-ng

[Stefan Schantl]

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Am 7. September 2025 20:27:08 schrieb Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>:

> Hi Stefan,
>
> On 07/09/2025 19:50, Adolf Belka wrote:
>> Hi Stefan,
>>
>> On 07/09/2025 19:09, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>> Hi Adolf,
>>>> Hi Stefan,
>>>>
>>>> On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>> Hi Michael & all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut has
>>>>>>> effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor with
>>>>>>> pretty much the same people contributing to it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log (although
>>>>>>> it
>>>>>>> seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance to
>>>>>>> indeed ship it as a drop-in.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
>>>>>> installed
>>>>>> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk, created
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the language
>>>>>> cache.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
>>>>>> rootfile
>>>>>> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
>>>>>> uncommented.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It still failed exactly the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
>>>>>> gratefully
>>>>>> accepted.
>>>>>
>>>>> This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the "chroot"
>>>>> binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate the
>>>>> update cache within the changed root directory.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
>>>>>
>>>>> In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is part
>>>>> of
>>>>> the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers decided,
>>>>> that
>>>>> "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
>>>>
>>>> Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I had
>>>> tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have had
>>>> the same problem.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part of
>>>>> the
>>>>> initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> " should
>>>>> to
>>>>> the trick.
>>>>
>>>> Giving it a try currently in a build.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks very much for your help on this.
>>>
>>> I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with the
>>> "--install" from abouve.
>>>
>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170
>>
>> With your suggestion and a bit of searching that was where I made the 
>> change. However I am also sure that without your suggestion I would still 
>> have been looking for how to fix this for a month of Sundays.
>>
>>
>> My build is nearly finished so I will see if that fixes the install.
>
> Thanks very much Stefan. The built version was able to successfully install 
> a working IPFire and I could restore a previously working version.
>
> Regards,
>
> Adolf.

Hello Adolf,

that sounds pretty cool - I'm happy that I was able to help. Thanks for 
working on this.

Best regards,

-Stefan
>
>
>>
>> One question I have will I also need to apply the same change to the dracut 
>> command in linux-initrd for the image generation?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Adolf.
>>
>>>
>>> -Stefan
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Adolf.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> -Stefan
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> dracut was at version 056. The source for that had version
>>>>>>>> 059
>>>>>>>> but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that repo
>>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>>> Mar 2024.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version 100
>>>>>>>> (Apr
>>>>>>>> 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the original
>>>>>>>> dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being actively
>>>>>>>> maintained.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
>>>>>>>> dracut-
>>>>>>>> ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut plays a
>>>>>>>> critical role in the booting process I thought I would ask if
>>>>>>>> anyone has any information to indicate that it is not worth
>>>>>>>> trying it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Adolf.


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Re: dracut-ng

[Adolf Belka]

Hi Stefan,

On 07/09/2025 20:42, Stefan Schantl wrote:
> Hi Adolf,
>> Hi Stefan,
>>
>> On 07/09/2025 19:09, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>> Hi Adolf,
>>>> Hi Stefan,
>>>>
>>>> On 07/09/2025 14:29, Stefan Schantl wrote:
>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>> Hi Michael & all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 02/09/2025 16:00, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes, I would be happy for you to give this a try.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Since Harald Hoyer has left RedHat, it seems that dracut
>>>>>>> has
>>>>>>> effectively been abandoned and dracut-ng is the successor
>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>> pretty much the same people contributing to it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I did not find any breaking changes in the change log
>>>>>>> (although
>>>>>>> it
>>>>>>> seems quite extensive), so we might have a very good chance
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> indeed ship it as a drop-in.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Let us know what you find out during testing it :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I tested dracut-ng using the newest version 108. When I
>>>>>> installed
>>>>>> IPFire, it built my raid system, it partitioned the disk,
>>>>>> created
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> filesystem, mounted them and installed the system.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then it failed with the message Unable to install the
>>>>>> language
>>>>>> cache.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So I then built version 100 and it did exactly the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then I thought, maybe I had commented out something in the
>>>>>> rootfile
>>>>>> that was needed so I did a build with all the rootfile lines
>>>>>> uncommented.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It still failed exactly the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any help or suggestions on how I can debug this would be
>>>>>> gratefully
>>>>>> accepted.
>>>>>
>>>>> This happens because the setup utils tries to launch the
>>>>> "chroot"
>>>>> binary and ties to execute the the required command to generate
>>>>> the
>>>>> update cache within the changed root directory.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=src/installer/main.c;h=9b9c630c35fa44ecb372f58cccad64806c198af4;hb=HEAD#l763
>>>>>
>>>>> In our current used version of dracut the "chroot" binary is
>>>>> part
>>>>> of
>>>>> the base and always is present in a generated initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> During development of dracut and dracut-ng the developers
>>>>> decided,
>>>>> that
>>>>> "chroot" does not have to be packed as default into an
>>>>> initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://github.com/dracut-ng/dracut-ng/commit/518133714b769160448a51c512d5e152ea6332da
>>>>
>>>> Yes, so I see it was already in the old dracut version 058. If I
>>>> had
>>>> tried updating from our current version 054 to 058, I would have
>>>> had
>>>> the same problem.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So the chroot binary now manually must be specified to be part
>>>>> of
>>>>> the
>>>>> initramdisk.
>>>>>
>>>>> Something like "dracut --install "/usr/sbin/chroot" <xyz> "
>>>>> should
>>>>> to
>>>>> the trick.
>>>>
>>>> Giving it a try currently in a build.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks very much for your help on this.
>>>
>>> I think the following line in "lfs/cdrom" needs to be extended with
>>> the
>>> "--install" from abouve.
>>>
>>> https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire-2.x.git;a=blob;f=lfs/cdrom;h=a25141fc20d82b68a0f10c2a40bfe3831ae1a713;hb=HEAD#l170
>>
>> With your suggestion and a bit of searching that was where I made the
>> change. However I am also sure that without your suggestion I would
>> still have been looking for how to fix this for a month of Sundays.
>>
>>
>> My build is nearly finished so I will see if that fixes the install.
>>
>> One question I have will I also need to apply the same change to the
>> dracut command in linux-initrd for the image generation?
> 
> I'm sorry, I'm unable to answer this question because I never used such
> an image installation. So the best option would be to just test and see
> what happened or somebody which is more familiar with the images can
> bring us some light into the dark.

I also don't use the image files for any installations.

However, looking through the IPFire wiki doc on installation I noted that if an image is being used for the installation then when booting, it already has the partitioning, filesystems, language cache etc all created in the image. An image installation starts directly with the 2nd stage of the install.

So based on that I believe the change is not needed for the image files and so I am leaving those alone on my build.

I will submit a patch just for the change in the cdrom file and we see what the feedback is.

Regards,

Adolf.

> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -Stefan
> 
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Adolf.
>>
>>>
>>> -Stefan
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Adolf.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> -Stefan
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 2 Sep 2025, at 13:13, Adolf Belka
>>>>>>>> <adolf.belka@ipfire.org>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I was looking at packages that needed updating. I noticed
>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> dracut was at version 056. The source for that had
>>>>>>>> version
>>>>>>>> 059
>>>>>>>> but that was from Dec 2022 and the last commit in that
>>>>>>>> repo
>>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>>> Mar 2024.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There is a new repo providing dracut-ng. Their version
>>>>>>>> 100
>>>>>>>> (Apr
>>>>>>>> 2024) is said to be a drop-in replacement for the
>>>>>>>> original
>>>>>>>> dracut. They are now at version 108 and it is being
>>>>>>>> actively
>>>>>>>> maintained.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> With it being said to be a drop-in replacement I thought
>>>>>>>> dracut-
>>>>>>>> ng looked a good candidate to test out but as dracut
>>>>>>>> plays a
>>>>>>>> critical role in the booting process I thought I would
>>>>>>>> ask if
>>>>>>>> anyone has any information to indicate that it is not
>>>>>>>> worth
>>>>>>>> trying it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>