[systemd-devel] /run needs to be mounted? ugh.

[Dave Reisner]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 04:32:56PM +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> Hey folks,
> 
> I'm using better-initramfs [1], a very small and minimal initrd that
> has been working very well for me. In switching to systemd, I found it
> necessary to have the initrd mount "/run" as tmpfs, according to the
> specs [2]. I made a little patch for better-initramfs, and now I'm
> talking to the maintainer about merging that.

Strange name. I can't find one thing which I find "better" about this
project compared to the more well-known initramfs creation tools.

> But really... I don't want to do this. Why is systemd itself not
> capable of setting up /run? Why does the initrd need to do it? My
> experience booting without /run is that systemd then fails to start
> completely. Is this what's supposed to happen? What's going on?
> Preferably, I don't desire to place any additional systemd-specific
> burden on better-initramfs.

systemd is already capable of setting up /run on its own:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/tree/src/core/mount-setup.c#n69

I have machines which boot systemd without an initramfs, so whatever
you're running into seems to be specific to your setup.

The existence of /run solves problems that existed even before systemd.
Among other uses, it stores runtime state which might need to be written
in order to setup the root storage stack. The fact that systemd was the
impetus to introduce this as a "standard" is really doing a favor to
early userspace maintainers everywhere.

Cheers,
Dave