This file contains the description of the initrd for Fedora 17.


A.  HOW I GOT IT

The initrd file is a gzip-compressed cpio archive.  Its contents
were extracted in an identical fashion as what was done for Ubuntu.


B.  CONTENTS

The initrd file contains the following directories:

bin  etc   lib	 root  sbin	 sys	  tmp  var
dev  proc  run   shutdown        sysroot  usr

In addition to the above directories, the initrd file contains a
script in the root directory called init.  That script begins with the
line:

#!/bin/sh

which tells the kernel that it is to be run with the system shell.
/bin/sh is a symbolic link to /bin/bash, the "Bourne-again shell" that
is the standard linux shell.  (This is in contrast to Ubuntu which
uses the busybox shell in initrd.)  


C.  PROCESSING

When /init is run it carries out the following steps:

1. It mounts the /proc and /sys file systems.  These are "pseudo" file
systems that provide an interface into the kernel.

2.  It mounts the /dev file system which will contain device files. 

3.  It creates a number of devices in the /dev file system.

4.  Parses the kernel command line into environment variables.

5.  Starts the udev daemon.  

6.  Mounts the "real" root file system onto /sysroot.

7.  The udev daemon is stopped.

8.  Runs the program switch_root which "pivots" the "real" root file
system into its normal mount point of / and then executes /sbin/init.