How do I create initramfs using dracut on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6
• dracut

Issue

• How do I create initramfs using dracut on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6?

Resolution

• Use dracut to create an initramfs instead of mkinitrd on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, (How do I rebuild the initial ramdisk image in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?).

  • By default, dracut makes an initramfs for a generic host. This means the initramfs includes all the storage drivers.
  • If custom drivers are needed, add --add-drivers option to dracut.
  • Using -H (--hostonly) option, dracut installs only what is needed for booting the local host.
  • You can put options for drivers into /etc/modprobe.d/*.conf as well as previous /etc/modprobe.conf.
  • To order driver loading, see How do I change the order of storage devices during boot in RHEL 5 and 6?.

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