hostname: invalid option -- '-b' displayed during boot

[Björn Schließmann]

During boot, you can see for a short time "hostname: invalid option -- 'b'" and a line about busybox, and a few other lines.

Checking /usr/share/initramfs-tools/init, which is copied into the initramfs during creation, indeed reveals a hostname call with "-b".

Also, unpacking my current initramfs and calling bin/hostname, the following is displayed, which IIRC coincides very well with the message displayed during boot for a short time:

$ bin/hostname -b
bin/hostname: invalid option -- 'b'
BusyBox v1.22.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.22.0-15ubuntu1) multi-call binary.

Usage: hostname [OPTIONS] [HOSTNAME | -F FILE]

Get or set hostname or DNS domain name

 -s Short
 -i Addresses for the hostname
 -d DNS domain name
 -f Fully qualified domain name
 -F FILE Use FILE's content as hostname
$

The initramfs should only use hostname options which busybox understands.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: initramfs-tools 0.120ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-27.32-generic 4.2.8-ckt1
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zcommon znvpair zavl nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Sat Feb 13 16:43:48 2016
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: initramfs-tools
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to wily on 2016-02-11 (1 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[costinel (costinel)]

ubuntu@ubuntu-mate:/tmp/test$ zcat /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-4-generic | cpio -i
192905 blocks
ubuntu@ubuntu-mate:/tmp/test$ grep -n -C2 hostname init64-
65-
66:# mdadm needs hostname to be set. This has to be done before the udev rules are called!
67:if [ -f "/etc/hostname" ]; then
68: /bin/hostname -b -F /etc/hostname 2>&1 1>/dev/null
69-fi
70-

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

This has been fixed in initramfs-tools 0.125ubuntu1 in Ubuntu 16.10 yakkety. From debian/changelog:

- init: drop -b from hostname as it is not supported by busybox