initramfs-tools/unmkinitramfs.8
Ben Hutchings bbbe1d37b3 unmkinitramfs.8: Update and expand description of multi-archive handling
The current behaviour of creating sub-directories for multi-archive
initramfs images was never documented.  Document what we do now, with
a note that we may stop creating sub-directories in future.

Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <benh@debian.org>
2025-03-20 02:40:42 +01:00

67 lines
1.6 KiB
Groff

.TH UNMKINITRAMFS 8 "2025/03/20" "initramfs\-tools" "System Administration"
.SH NAME
unmkinitramfs \- extract content from an initramfs image
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B unmkinitramfs
.RB [ -v ]
.IR initramfs-file " " directory
.br
.BR unmkinitramfs " " -h
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B unmkinitramfs
command extracts the content of a given initramfs image using
.B cpio
and the appropriate decompressor command.
The initramfs image may be a single compressed cpio archive, or the
concatenation of any number of uncompressed cpio archives followed by
a compressed cpio archive.
When the initramfs image includes one or more "early initramfs"
archives, that is uncompressed archives with microcode or other files
that the kernel uses directly, these are extracted to sub\-directories
named "\fBearly\fR", "\fBearly2\fR", etc., and the other archives are
extracted to a sub\-directory named "\fBmain\fR".
In a future version of initramfs\-tools this behaviour may change so
that all archives are extracted directly into the given directory.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B -h
Display usage information and exit.
.TP
.B -v
Display verbose messages about extraction.
.SH USAGE EXAMPLES
Extract initramfs content of current running kernel:
.PP
.B unmkinitramfs /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r) initramfs/
.SH BUGS
.BR unmkinitramfs
does not support initramfs images with more or less than one
compressed cpio archive.
.SH AUTHOR
The initramfs-tools are written by Maximilian Attems <maks@debian.org>
and numerous others.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR
.IR initramfs-tools (7),
.IR lsinitramfs (8),
.IR mkinitramfs (8),
.IR update-initramfs (8).