# EOL for bliss-initramfs

## Maxie

I installed my system using this guide.

Ever since I use bliss-initramfs when updating the kernel.

I see that now it's masked and scheduled to be removed. I suppose there are some problems with it that I failed to notice and that I would best stop using it.

But then - I don't really know what did it do to generate the initramfs. I don't know if other tools that generate initramfs are fully equivalent, should I use them in some specific way to make them work for me etc.

Could anyone please give me some pointers on generating intiramfs for root on nvme/zfs?

Mod edit: Corrected URL BBCode. — JRG

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## charles17

 *Maxie wrote:*   

> I installed my system using this guide.
> 
> Ever since I use bliss-initramfs when updating the kernel.
> 
> I see that now it's masked and scheduled to be removed. I suppose there are some problems with it that I failed to notice and that I would best stop using it.
> ...

 

Why do you think you need an initramfs?

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## John R. Graham

 *charles17 wrote:*   

> Why do you think you need an initramfs?

 The ZFS article on the Gentoo Wiki has this to say:To boot from a ZFS volume as the root filesystem requires a ZFS capable kernel and an initial ramdisk (initramfs) which has the ZFS userspace utilities.@Maxie, there are instructions in that article on how to use genkernel to make a ZFS-capable initramfs.

- John

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## bunder

dracut should work fine these days as well   :Cool: 

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## Maxie

Thanks. I suppose there's nothing NVMe specific in that intitramfs, right?

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## xanderal

 *Maxie wrote:*   

> Thanks. I suppose there's nothing NVMe specific in that intitramfs, right?

 Not to my knowledge. I don't use zfs but have a nvme. I generate my initramfs with

```
genkernel --luks --lvm --install --no-mountboot --firmware initramfs
```

Seems like you only need to add zfs support.

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## mrbassie

https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/9109

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## Maxie

I'm just going through it and I encountered issues.

genkernel warned me that

"No hostid embedded into initramfs. You MUST set 'spl_hostid=<hostid>' parameter to provide hostid for ZFS!".

OK. So I did a quick search of what hostid is, used hostid binary to read my hostid "it's 00000000", put that it /etc/hostid and generated initramfs again.

Then rebooted.

I'm not sure exactly what I mounted but the system would reject my user password as well as the root on (which I don't recall ever changing).

So I went back to check it out only to see that my system wouldn't boot - because hostid changed (to "30303030" or something like that) and zpool would reject import.

I fixed that with the help of rescue CD. So...I have 2 problems:

* I can't log in. So far I think I can figure it out myself

* I don't know how to manage hostid and what to do to make it 00000000 as it is now.

I would be grateful for any help with that...

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## Maxie

I tried creating empty /etc/hostid and it just did what I needed - used 00000000.

Once I did it I could actually log in, so the second problem fixed itself and I'm finally with a fresh kernel without bliss-initramfs.

Thanks again to everyone who helped.  :Smile: 

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