BusyBox/inittab weirdness

[Rory Vieira]

Rob,

> > Now my inittab start off like:
> > -------------------------------
> >
> > ::sysinit:echo "Starting up Linux `uname -r`..."
> > null::sysinit:/bin/mount -n -t proc proc /proc 
> > ...
> Meaning the console they're attached to is /dev/null.
The second line, yes. But as I am omitting the whole thing on 
line 1, I don't know where that's pointing to. If I remember 
correctly from the manual, it should be /dev/console (or the 
current active console)

> > The first line shows 'echo' and 'uname' without a path 
> specification.
> 
> Did you give an absolute path to either one?
Nope.

> > The second line though is '/bin/mount'!
> 
> _You_ gave an absolute path to mount.
Yes I did :)

> > Obviously I needed to make the 'mount', 'sh', and 'init' links 
> > beforehand. Why do I need to do this for mount etc, but not 
> with echo 
> > or uname?
> 
> Why did you specify an absolute path for them, but not for 
> echo and uname?
Well, that's what I'm trying to find out *grin*
I'm not sure... The first line was copied from my cd-linux project
and seemed to work without any hassle.
 
> > If I change the second line to just 'mount...' it claims it 
> can find mount at all...
> 
> I have no idea what your $PATH is set to.
Well, as it is inittab we're talking about... I assume nothing or
/bin:/sbin. I really don't know as I haven't set a path yet...

The line '::sysinit:echo...' is in fact the first line. I'm setting 
the path in /etc/rc.d/rcS but that is still a few lines lower in my
inittab.

In this case I think the obvious question would be:
  What is BusyBox' default path setting?

PS I read that whole thread about the tar/cpio thing. It was extremely
interesting to read (even for my level). Now somewhere I read the line
about how to use cpio to 'extract' the archive. Any chance you know
how to create it using cpio? I'm actually thinking of giving initramfs
a try. Until now I have created static images that were initrd's. I've
even got as far as to utilize the pivot_root/chroot stuff and got it
working too. But it's a pain in the neck, and hard to understand for
that matter... I have the idea (or it least hope so) that initramfs is
more suitable for my needs.
Now my mini initrd simply created a tmpfs, which I fill by extracting a
tar file from cd, and pivot to it, so I can clear the memory used by the
initrd. I hope this whole step will not be nessesary at all...

Cheers,
Rory