make-initrd is a uevent-driven initramfs infrastructure based on udev. It is used to build initramfs images and provide the runtime pieces that run inside those images during early boot.

The project is feature-based: you describe the target image via a set of features, and the build system resolves ordering and dependencies.

Build and install:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Generate a config from the current system (optional but recommended on first run):

sudo make-initrd guess-config | sudo tee /etc/initrd.mk

Build initramfs for the running kernel:

sudo make-initrd -v

These are used on the host when building make-initrd and when generating images:

• GNU make
• bash
• coreutils
• pkg-config
• C toolchain (cc, headers, standard build tools)
• flex and bison (lex and yacc)
• libkmod/kmod (required)
• udevd and udevadm (required)
• Compression libraries for image tools: zlib, bzip2, xz (liblzma), zstd
• libelf (optional, improves ELF dependency detection)
• json-c (optional, supports parsing ELF DLOPEN metadata)
• scdoc (optional, for generating man pages)

These are not generic host build dependencies. They are needed in the generated initramfs runtime:

• busybox for core userspace tools in initramfs
• libshell scripts/utilities used by initramfs logic

make-initrd can use bundled copies from git submodules or external/system copies, depending on configure options and host setup.

If you plan to use bundled dependencies, initialize submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Default build:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

Install to the host system:

sudo make install

Install into a staging directory (for packaging):

make install DESTDIR=/path/to/stage

Developer/in-tree mode:

./configure --enable-local-build
make

• Build images for configured targets:

make-initrd

• Show guessed config:

make-initrd guess-config

• Show modules needed for a device or mountpoint:

make-initrd guess-modules /dev/sda1

• Collect diagnostic archive:

make-initrd bug-report

• Project overview: Documentation/README.md
• Configuration: Documentation/Configuration.md
• Guessing logic: Documentation/GuessConfiguration.md
• Boot parameters: Documentation/BootParameters.md
• Initramfs internals: Documentation/HowInitramfsWorks.md
• FAQ: Documentation/FAQ.md
• Man page source: Documentation/manpages/make-initrd.1.md
• Contributing: Documentation/Contributing.md
• Wiki: https://github.com/osboot/make-initrd/wiki

make-initrd aims to be portable, but is validated on a limited set of systems.

• Operating systems: ALTLinux, Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu
• C libraries: GNU libc, musl libc

make-initrd is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3.