How to get bundled initramfs installed in my-image-apalis-imx6.bootfs.tar.xz

Hi,

This is maybe a dumb question, if so I apologize. So, I have created my own layer to build a custom linux for the aforementioned hardware and software (apalis-imx6q IT and BSP 3.0b4). This creates a proper tezi tarball and I can flash and install it fine.

I recently had a requirement to build an initramfs, bundled into the kernel. I was able to accomplish this just fine too.

The question I have is basically: How do I get the initramfs version into the tezi boot tarball? I have not been able to figure out how to do that.

Right now, two zImages are built and some symlinks to them:

lrwxrwxrwx 2 jon jon       68 Oct 22 20:34 **zImage** -> zImage--4.14-2.3.x+git0+baa6c24240-r0-apalis-imx6-20201023015404.bin
-rw-r--r-- 2 jon jon  6791912 Oct 22 20:34 zImage--4.14-2.3.x+git0+baa6c24240-r0-apalis-imx6-20201023015404.bin
lrwxrwxrwx 2 jon jon       68 Oct 22 20:34 zImage-apalis-imx6.bin -> zImage--4.14-2.3.x+git0+baa6c24240-r0-apalis-imx6-20201023015404.bin
-rw-r--r-- 2 jon jon 13750704 Oct 22 20:34 zImage-initramfs--4.14-2.3.x+git0+baa6c24240-r0-apalis-imx6-20201023015404.bin
lrwxrwxrwx 2 jon jon       78 Oct 22 20:34 **zImage-initramfs-apalis-imx6.bin** -> zImage-initramfs--4.14-2.3.x+git0+baa6c24240-r0-apalis-imx6-20201023015404.bin

However, only zImage is present in the my-image-apalis-imx6.bootfs.tar.xz file, which of course just grabs the non-initramfs version of the kernel image.

I think all I need to do is change this symlink in some fashion. Any suggestions? I have made the change manually to the bootfs tarball and repacked it, then flashed it and things work as expected - I would just like to eliminate that manual step and have it always use zImage → zImage-initramfs-apalis-imx6.bin going forward without improper hacks.

Thanks!

Ok, so it turned out to be pretty trivial to do - it just required spelunking through a lot of yocto. At first I tried just doing it by ‘hand’ in a do_deploy_append() in my kernel bbappend.

This worked but seemed “hacky”.

In the end, all I needed was the following in my local.conf:

IMAGE_BOOT_FILES_append = " zImage-initramfs-apalis-imx6.bin;zImage"

Hi,

Your solution doesn’t seem too “hacky” in my opinion. According to the Yocto manual: https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/current/mega-manual/mega-manual.html#var-IMAGE_BOOT_FILES

This seems like the correct way to include additional files into the boot partition/bootfs. So unless you notice anything strange I’d say this seems fine.

Best Regards,
Jeremias

@jtrulson

You literally saved me days of banging my head against the computer by posting this solution. Thank you thank you thank you.