Dracut (software)

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Dracut
Original author(s)Harald Hoyer and others
Initial releaseJuly 2009; 16 years ago (2009-07)
Stable release
108[1] / 4 August 2025; 38 days ago (4 August 2025)
Repository
Written inC, Bash, Rust
Operating systemLinux
PlatformLinux kernel
TypeInitial ramdisk
LicenseGPLv2+, LGPLv2+
Websitedracut-ng.github.io/dracut-ng/ Edit this at Wikidata

Dracut is a set of tools that provide enhanced functionality for automating the Linux boot process. The tool named dracut is used to create a Linux boot image (initramfs) by copying tools and files from an installed system and combining it with the Dracut framework.

The initramfs has essentially one purpose: locating and mounting the real root file system so that the boot process can transition to it. This functionality is dependent on device availability. Therefore, instead of having hard-coded scripts to determine device availability and suitability, Dracut's initramfs depends on the Linux device manager (udev) to create symbolic links to device nodes. When the root file system's device node appears, Dracut mounts it as the new root file system. This helps to minimize the time required in initramfs such that, for example, 5-second boots are possible.[2]

Most of the initramfs generation functionality in Dracut is provided by generator modules that are sourced by the main dracut tool to install specific functionality into the initramfs. They live in the modules subdirectory, and use functionality provided by dracut-functions to do their work.[2]

Features

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Dracut supports booting from direct attached storage

Dracut supports booting from network storage

Dracut supports the following architectures

Dracut can use the following shells

Dracut supports the following init systems

Dracut can be used for live media generation. It has flags for squashfs, and other things like overlay file system.[2]

History

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Dracut originated from Fedora Linux sponsored initially by Red Hat in Dec 2008.[3] Dracut is named after the town of Dracut, similar to Wayland and Weston. This follows the tradition of Red Hat naming projects after places near the headquarters of Red Hat in Westford, Massachusetts.[4]

In 2013, the development moved to GitHub from Kernel.org, while a mirror was maintained till 2022 (v56).

As of Oct 2021, after the long time lead developer Harald Hoyer left Red Hat it is a community-managed open source project.

In Mar 29 2024, the project was moved to a new code repository by the core team after the project leader had not been heard from for several months.

In Feb 2025 Ubuntu announced a plan to switch the default initramfs infrastructure from initramfs-tools to dracut.

Adoption

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Distributions that depend on the dracut project for initramfs generation. The list is sorted by the date when dracut (partially or fully) became the dependency for generating initramfs by default for a given distribution.

Most distributions have made the dracut package available to allow replacing the distribution's default initramfs generator. Significant (but incomplete) list of these distributions:

Applications

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Notable projects using dracut exclusively for initramfs generation

See also

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References

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  1. ^ dracut-ng. "Release dracut-108 · dracut-ng/dracut-ng". Retrieved 11 September 2025.
  2. ^ a b c dracut documentation, github.com
  3. ^ Linux kernel mailing list/Dracut, Linux_kernel_mailing_list
  4. ^ "dracut 106 :: Dracut". dracut-ng.github.io. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
  5. ^ Features/Dracut, FedoraProject
  6. ^ RHEL6 SRPMS FTP, redhat.com
  7. ^ Dracut - Gentoo Wiki, wiki.gentoo.org
  8. ^ kernel-install.eclass: Install logic for dist-kernels, Gentoo Foundation, retrieved 2022-11-06
  9. ^ openmamba - dracut (007)
  10. ^ Kernel, archived from the original on April 23, 2014
  11. ^ Mageia App Db, mageia.madb.org
  12. ^ Kernel - Void Linux Handbook, voidlinux.org, retrieved 2022-12-14
  13. ^ Void Linux - dracut (014)
  14. ^ openSUSE 13.2 Major features, openSUSE project, retrieved 2014-11-04
  15. ^ Adelie Linux - dracut (046), 18 August 2017
  16. ^ ALT Linux - dracut (050)
  17. ^ Handbook for CRUX 3.7
  18. ^ Ubuntu - dracut (005-1) [universe], ubuntu.com, archived from the original on 11 June 2012
  19. ^ Ubuntu - dracut (060+5)
  20. ^ Lubuntu - dracut (106)
  21. ^ Debian - dracut (005-1), debian.org, archived from the original on 28 June 2010, retrieved 2010-06-28
  22. ^ Debian - dracut (060+5), 22 August 2023
  23. ^ "Arch Linux - dracut (049-1)", www.archlinux.org, 15 May 2019, retrieved 2019-05-21
  24. ^ "Alpine - dracut (056)", www.alpinelinux.org, retrieved 2022-02-27
  25. ^ NixOS - dracut (059)
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