mkinitramfs does not use cpio -L (--dereference)

[Bela Lubkin]

This may be related to LP#327106, which was recommending to remove --dereference (but the resolution in that bug doesn't show it being implemented at that time). Problem is present in Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04, all I have immediately handy at the moment to check; and appears to be the same in current 13.04 developmental source.

Consequence: initrd on my 11.10 and 12.04 systems have dangling symlinks:

$ xzcat /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-32-generic | cpio -itv | grep '. -> /'
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 Mar 13 2012 etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-oss.conf -> /lib/linux-sound-base/noOSS.modprobe.conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Jul 11 2011 etc/ld.so.conf.d/x86_64-linux-gnu_GL.conf -> /etc/alternatives/x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 Mar 13 2012 etc/ld.so.conf.d/i386-linux-gnu_GL.conf -> /etc/alternatives/i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Oct 19 02:50 sbin/mount.ntfs-3g -> /bin/ntfs-3g
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Oct 19 02:50 sbin/mount.ntfs -> /bin/ntfs-3g

The `mount.ntfs` links are fine as /bin/ntfs-3g itself exists in the archive. The other three point to files which do not exist.

I'm not sure if any of them have a *practical* impact. But other symlinks could exist, depending on system configuration, user meddling etc.

LP#327106 included patch code which appears to completely fix this issue. It didn't just get rid of "--dereference", it replaced it with shell code to reach out and copy the contents of files which would otherwise have become dangling symlinks. Suggest revisiting that part of the patch (see https://launchpadlibrarian.net/22398738/mkinitramfs.diff)