UNMKINITRAMFS(8)

✨ UNMKINITRAMFS(8) — System Administration ✨

Hey bestie, okay so this page is all about unmkinitramfs 🧚 It's the command that extracts content from an initramfs image 💖

🌸 NAME

unmkinitramfs — extract content from an initramfs image 🎀

💅 SYNOPSIS

unmkinitramfs [-v] initramfs-file directory
unmkinitramfs -h

🦋 DESCRIPTION

Okay so the unmkinitramfs command extracts the content of a given initramfs image using cpio and the appropriate decompressor command. It's giving organized, no cap 🫶

The initramfs image may be a single compressed cpio archive, or the concatenation of any number of uncompressed cpio archives optionally followed by a compressed cpio archive. Lowkey wild, but it works 🔥

Earlier versions of this command would in some cases unpack an initramfs consisting of multiple archives into multiple subdirectories of the given directory. 😭 That was the old vibe, so be aware of it!

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -h — Display usage information and exit. Need the cheat sheet? This one's for you 📝
• -v — Display verbose messages about extraction. Main character energy, we want to see everything happening 👑

🍓 USAGE EXAMPLES

Extract initramfs content of current running kernel:

unmkinitramfs /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r) initramfs/

🙈 BUGS

⚠️ unmkinitramfs does not support initramfs images with more than one compressed cpio archive. Not me being sad about it, but just know this limitation exists 💀

🌈 AUTHOR

The initramfs-tools are written by Maximilian Attems <maks@debian.org> and numerous others. Huge shoutout to them 🫶💜

🔥 SEE ALSO

initramfs-tools(7), lsinitramfs(8), mkinitramfs(8), update-initramfs(8). Go check those out, they're iconic too ✨

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Stay iconic, bestie 💖 This was initramfs-tools 2025/03/20, typed up for you with love 🦋 (page UNMKINITRAMFS(8), System Administration) 💅