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+Early userspace support
+=======================
+
+Last update: 2004-12-20 tlh
+
+
+"Early userspace" is a set of libraries and programs that provide
+various pieces of functionality that are important enough to be
+available while a Linux kernel is coming up, but that don't need to be
+run inside the kernel itself.
+
+It consists of several major infrastructure components:
+
+- gen_init_cpio, a program that builds a cpio-format archive
+  containing a root filesystem image.  This archive is compressed, and
+  the compressed image is linked into the kernel image.
+- initramfs, a chunk of code that unpacks the compressed cpio image
+  midway through the kernel boot process.
+- klibc, a userspace C library, currently packaged separately, that is
+  optimized for correctness and small size.
+
+The cpio file format used by initramfs is the "newc" (aka "cpio -c")
+format, and is documented in the file "buffer-format.txt".  There are
+two ways to add an early userspace image: specify an existing cpio
+archive to be used as the image or have the kernel build process build
+the image from specifications.
+
+CPIO ARCHIVE method
+
+You can create a cpio archive that contains the early userspace image.
+Youre cpio archive should be specified in CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and it
+will be used directly.  Only a single cpio file may be specified in
+CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and directory and file names are not allowed in
+combination with a cpio archive.
+
+IMAGE BUILDING method
+
+The kernel build process can also build an early userspace image from
+source parts rather than supplying a cpio archive.  This method provides
+a way to create images with root-owned files even though the image was
+built by an unprivileged user.
+
+The image is specified as one or more sources in
+CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE.  Sources can be either directories or files -
+cpio archives are *not* allowed when building from sources.
+
+A source directory will have it and all of it's contents packaged.  The
+specified directory name will be mapped to '/'.  When packaging a
+directory, limited user and group ID translation can be performed.
+INITRAMFS_ROOT_UID can be set to a user ID that needs to be mapped to
+user root (0).  INITRAMFS_ROOT_GID can be set to a group ID that needs
+to be mapped to group root (0).
+
+A source file must be directives in the format required by the
+usr/gen_init_cpio utility (run 'usr/gen_init_cpio --help' to get the
+file format).  The directives in the file will be passed directly to
+usr/gen_init_cpio.
+
+When a combination of directories and files are specified then the
+initramfs image will be an aggregate of all of them.  In this way a user
+can create a 'root-image' directory and install all files into it.
+Because device-special files cannot be created by a unprivileged user,
+special files can be listed in a 'root-files' file.  Both 'root-image'
+and 'root-files' can be listed in CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE and a complete
+early userspace image can be built by an unprivileged user.
+
+As a technical note, when directories and files are specified, the
+entire CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE is passed to
+scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh.  This means that CONFIG_INITRAMFS_SOURCE
+can really be interpreted as any legal argument to
+gen_initramfs_list.sh.  If a directory is specified as an argument then
+the contents are scanned, uid/gid translation is performed, and
+usr/gen_init_cpio file directives are output.  If a directory is
+specified as an arugemnt to scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh then the
+contents of the file are simply copied to the output.  All of the output
+directives from directory scanning and file contents copying are
+processed by usr/gen_init_cpio.
+
+See also 'scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh -h'.
+
+Where's this all leading?
+=========================
+
+The klibc distribution contains some of the necessary software to make
+early userspace useful.  The klibc distribution is currently
+maintained separately from the kernel, but this may change early in
+the 2.7 era (it missed the boat for 2.5).
+
+You can obtain somewhat infrequent snapshots of klibc from
+ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/klibc/
+
+For active users, you are better off using the klibc BitKeeper
+repositories, at http://klibc.bkbits.net/
+
+The standalone klibc distribution currently provides three components,
+in addition to the klibc library:
+
+- ipconfig, a program that configures network interfaces.  It can
+  configure them statically, or use DHCP to obtain information
+  dynamically (aka "IP autoconfiguration").
+- nfsmount, a program that can mount an NFS filesystem.
+- kinit, the "glue" that uses ipconfig and nfsmount to replace the old
+  support for IP autoconfig, mount a filesystem over NFS, and continue
+  system boot using that filesystem as root.
+
+kinit is built as a single statically linked binary to save space.
+
+Eventually, several more chunks of kernel functionality will hopefully
+move to early userspace:
+
+- Almost all of init/do_mounts* (the beginning of this is already in
+  place)
+- ACPI table parsing
+- Insert unwieldy subsystem that doesn't really need to be in kernel
+  space here
+
+If kinit doesn't meet your current needs and you've got bytes to burn,
+the klibc distribution includes a small Bourne-compatible shell (ash)
+and a number of other utilities, so you can replace kinit and build
+custom initramfs images that meet your needs exactly.
+
+For questions and help, you can sign up for the early userspace
+mailing list at http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/klibc
+
+How does it work?
+=================
+
+The kernel has currently 3 ways to mount the root filesystem:
+
+a) all required device and filesystem drivers compiled into the kernel, no
+   initrd.  init/main.c:init() will call prepare_namespace() to mount the
+   final root filesystem, based on the root= option and optional init= to run
+   some other init binary than listed at the end of init/main.c:init().
+
+b) some device and filesystem drivers built as modules and stored in an
+   initrd.  The initrd must contain a binary '/linuxrc' which is supposed to
+   load these driver modules.  It is also possible to mount the final root
+   filesystem via linuxrc and use the pivot_root syscall.  The initrd is
+   mounted and executed via prepare_namespace().
+
+c) using initramfs.  The call to prepare_namespace() must be skipped.
+   This means that a binary must do all the work.  Said binary can be stored
+   into initramfs either via modifying usr/gen_init_cpio.c or via the new
+   initrd format, an cpio archive.  It must be called "/init".  This binary
+   is responsible to do all the things prepare_namespace() would do.
+
+   To remain backwards compatibility, the /init binary will only run if it
+   comes via an initramfs cpio archive.  If this is not the case,
+   init/main.c:init() will run prepare_namespace() to mount the final root
+   and exec one of the predefined init binaries.
+
+Bryan O'Sullivan <bos@serpentine.com>