[pkg-cryptsetup-devel] klibc only initramfs

[Goswin von Brederlow]

Hi,

I googled a bit and found this old mail about a klibc only initramfs:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/2006/07/msg00400.html

I would really like to do this and it has been close to 4 years since
that mail. But it doesn't look like there has been much progress or not
in the right direction. Looking at my initramfs I see:

% ls lib
cryptsetup/                            libm.so.6
klibc-zUXi_KjK5ZQAIyc8jlwme9T6a4U.so*  libncurses.so.5
ld-linux.so.2*                         libpopt.so.0
libc.so.6*                             libreadline.so.5
libcfont.so.0                          libselinux.so.1
libconsole.so.0                        libuuid.so.1
libctutils.so.0                        libvolume_id.so.0
libdevmapper.so.1.02.1                 modules/
libdl.so.2                             udev/

% ls bin
busybox*  dmesg*   insmod*    minips*  nfsmount*    reboot*     sleep*   zcat*
cat*      false*   ipconfig*  mkdir*   nuke*        resume*     sync*
chroot*   fstype*  kill*      mkfifo*  pivot_root*  run-init*   true*
cpio*     gunzip*  ln*        mknod*   poweroff*    sh*         umount*
dd*       halt*    loadkeys*  mount*   readlink*    sh.shared*  uname*


So, while I can build a trivial initramfs with klibc only, as soon as I
want md, lvm or crypt I will be pulling in libc6 and a bunch of other
libs as well as busybox. Exactly those things the klibc should replace.


Could we build stripped down versions of those tools (and libs as
required) build against klibc? I certainly see no need for ncurses in my
initramfs. Building a klibc based initramfs that then includes libc6
(and even busybox) as well seems rather stupid. One without klibc would
be smaller then.

MfG
        Goswin