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From: Askar Safin <safinaskar@gmail.com>
To: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
	Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>, Jan Kara <jack@suse.cz>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org,
	initramfs@vger.kernel.org, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>,
	David Disseldorp <ddiss@suse.de>,
	Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>,
	Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org>,
	patches@lists.linux.dev
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] init: ensure that /dev/null is (nearly) always available in initramfs
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:03:12 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260219210312.3468980-3-safinaskar@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260219210312.3468980-1-safinaskar@gmail.com>

Binaries linked with bionic libc require /dev/null to be present,
otherwise they will crash before entering "main", as explained
in https://landley.net/toybox/faq.html#cross3 .

So we should put /dev/null to initramfs, but this is impossible
if we create initramfs using "cpio" and we are running as normal
user.

This problem can be solved by using gen_init_cpio.

But let's make sure instead that /dev/null is always available as
a quality-of-implementation feature. This will reduce number
of failure modes and will make it easier for developers to
get early boot right. (Early boot issues are very hard to debug.)

Signed-off-by: Askar Safin <safinaskar@gmail.com>
---
 init/do_mounts.c | 3 +++
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/init/do_mounts.c b/init/do_mounts.c
index f911280a348e..3e71049b3dcf 100644
--- a/init/do_mounts.c
+++ b/init/do_mounts.c
@@ -525,5 +525,8 @@ void __init create_basic_rootfs(void)
 	WARN_ON_ONCE(init_mkdir("/dev", 0755) != 0);
 	WARN_ON_ONCE(init_mknod("/dev/console", S_IFCHR | 0600,
 			new_encode_dev(MKDEV(5, 1))) != 0);
+	WARN_ON_ONCE(init_mknod("/dev/null", S_IFCHR,
+			new_encode_dev(MKDEV(1, 3))) != 0);
+	WARN_ON_ONCE(init_chmod("/dev/null", 0666) != 0);
 	WARN_ON_ONCE(init_mkdir("/root", 0700) != 0);
 }
-- 
2.47.3


  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-02-19 21:04 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-02-19 21:03 [PATCH 0/2] init: ensure that /dev/console and /dev/null are (nearly) always available in initramfs Askar Safin
2026-02-19 21:03 ` [PATCH 1/2] init: ensure that /dev/console is " Askar Safin
2026-02-19 23:59   ` David Disseldorp
2026-02-20 19:11     ` Askar Safin
2026-02-23  1:19       ` David Disseldorp
2026-02-23 21:41         ` Askar Safin
2026-02-23  1:27     ` Rob Landley
2026-02-23  2:33       ` David Disseldorp
2026-02-23 16:11         ` Rob Landley
2026-02-23 17:34           ` Askar Safin
2026-02-23 19:45             ` Rob Landley
2026-02-23 23:04       ` Askar Safin
2026-02-19 21:03 ` Askar Safin [this message]
2026-02-20  0:26   ` [PATCH 2/2] init: ensure that /dev/null " David Disseldorp
2026-02-21  0:16     ` Askar Safin
2026-02-23  1:15   ` Rob Landley
2026-02-23 21:18     ` Askar Safin
2026-02-23  0:17 ` [PATCH 0/2] init: ensure that /dev/console and /dev/null are " Rob Landley
2026-02-23 20:58   ` Askar Safin
2026-02-24 19:02     ` Rob Landley
2026-03-07  3:22       ` Askar Safin
2026-03-10 12:51         ` Rob Landley
2026-03-23  3:47           ` Askar Safin

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