This is still an issue in Ubuntu 16.04, now initramfs-tools unconditionally calls `wait-for-root /dev/nbd0 10` without even using ROOTDELAY.
I also reported this bug to https://github.com/yoe/nbd/issues/36. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to initramfs-tools in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/696435 Title: wait-for-root fails to detect nbd root Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in nbd package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: When using an nbd root, wait-for-root blocks for 30 seconds before booting continues successfully. Using Ubuntu Natty, related packages versions: nbd-client 1:2.9.16-6ubuntu1 initramfs-tools 0.98.1ubuntu9 The wait-for-root call from /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/local: while [ -z "${FSTYPE}" ]; do FSTYPE=$(wait-for-root "${ROOT}" ${ROOTDELAY:-30}) # Run failure hooks, hoping one of them can fix up the system # and we can restart the wait loop. If they all fail, abort # and move on to the panic handler and shell. if [ -z "${FSTYPE}" ] && ! try_failure_hooks; then break fi done I replaced wait-for-root with a sh script that did `set >&2`, here are the relevant environment variables at the time wait-for-root was called: ROOT='/dev/nbd0' ROOTDELAY='' ROOTFLAGS='' ROOTFSTYPE='' nbdroot='192.168.0.1,2011' It's probably worth noting that "nbd0: unknown partition table" was displayed asynchronously 1-2 seconds after wait-for-root was invoked and while it was still waiting. But I tried adding a "sleep 5" as the last line of local-top/nbd, so that the nbd message was displayed a lot before wait-for-root was called, and it didn't make a difference. So I don't think a race condition is involved in this problem. Temporarily I'm passing rootdelay=1 in the kernel command line to work around the problem. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-tools/+bug/696435/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp