---
name: "mkinitrd.conf"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "initrd-tools"
version: "0.1.84.2"
release: "Debian 4.0 (Etch)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mkinitrd.conf"
---

# mkinitrd.conf(5)

configuration file for mkinitrd

## NAME

mkinitrd.conf - configuration file for mkinitrd

## DESCRIPTION

The behaviour of [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) may be altered by changing this file.  This file is meant to be parsed as a shell script thus the syntactical rules of a shell script will apply.  See [**sh**(1)](/sh/1.md) for more details.

## VARIABLES

- **MODULES**

  The legal values are *all*, *most*, *dep* and *none*. All modules are included on the image if it is set to *all*. Setting it to *most* will cause [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) to exclude modules which are considered unlikely to be necessary in the process of bringing up a root file system.  Setting it to *dep* will cause [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) to use [**modprobe**(8)](/modprobe/8.md) to calculate exactly what modules are needed. Setting it to *none* will cause [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) to not include any modules, even if modules were specified in */etc/mkinitrd/modules*.

- **DELAY**

  The number of seconds the **linuxrc** script should wait to allow the user to interrupt it before the system is brought up.

- **ROOT**

  If this is set to *probe*, [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) will try to determine the modules needed to bring up the root file system using */etc/fstab*. It will also insert code onto the image in order to setup a software **RAID** device if necessary.  This can be disabled by setting it to a null string. If you get the error \`\`*Unknown root device*'' then this setting must be disabled and you will need to set up the **initrd** image manually.

  If you wish to use an alternative root device, you can specify it here and [**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md) will use that to figure out what is needed. You can also set the file system type of your root device by appending it to the value of **ROOT** with a space in between.  You will need to quote the entire value as otherwise the shell will interpret the file system type as a command.

  This variable replaces the obsolete **PROBE** variable.  The values *probe* and the null string correspond to the values *on* and *off* for **PROBE**.

- **UMASK**

  The umask is used during the construction of the directory structure and the final image.

- **MKIMAGE**

  This should be a command that produces an **initrd** image given a directory.  It must contain two occurrences of *%s*. The first one will be replaced by the path to the directory for the candidate image.  The other one will be replaced by the name of the output file.  This can be used to produce images of types other than **CRAMFS**. For example, to generate **ROMFS** images, set **MKIMAGE** to *'genromfs -d %s -f %s'*.

- **BUSYBOX**

  If this is set to *yes* then [**busybox**(1)](/busybox/1.md) will be included on the **initrd** image.

- **PKGSCRIPTS**

  If this is set to *yes* then the scripts under */usr/share/initrd-tools/scripts* will be run when the **initrd** image is made.

- **INITRD\_LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH**

  This value will be assigned to **LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH** when **mkinitrd** determines the library dependencies of binaries that will be copied onto the image.

- **RESUME**

  If this is set, default to this partition to use for resuming.  The resume= passed on the command line will override this setting. The kernel needs to have the power management (PM) config's enabled.

## SEE ALSO

[**mkinitrd**(8)](/mkinitrd/8.md)

## AUTHOR

Herbert Xu \<herbert@debian.org\>