chown: invalid group root:root after initramfs, plymouth?

[the_cynic]

Similarly to this post I am also getting an `chown: invalid group root:root` message on boot after initramfs spools up and before a udevd. Like the other individual, I had also recently installed Plymouth. I use dracut to create the initramfs. Grub is my bootloader. Linux 6.18.12-gentoo-dist is my kernel.

Steps tried so far:
Verified grub entries are to the correct initramfs, kernel, etc.
Checked dracut config files weren't hiding anything that wasn't in the guidebook.
Uninstalled Plymouth and ran installkernel again

It isn't "breaking" anything that I know of. It's just text that shouldn't be there ideally.

lsmod output:
https://gist.github.com/the-cynic-too/5 ... 483279b724

grub entry:
https://gist.github.com/the-cynic-too/c ... cdcc3bfd8a

dracut entries (combined of all conf's):
https://gist.github.com/the-cynic-too/1 ... 1dced9ed28

EDIT:
Adding my USE printout:
https://gist.github.com/the-cynic-too/d ... 96591486de

[zen_desu]

Does it fail to boot? Are you sure that message is from the initramfs? Are you using a systemd profile?

[the_cynic]

Does it fail to boot? Are you sure that message is from the initramfs? Are you using a systemd profile?

Boots fine. I'm not sure the source, but it occurs immediately after initramfs finishes but before a udevd message and kernel spewing output. I'm actually on OpenRC. I could grep my installkernel verbose logs as well if anyone has a clue where to begin looking for clues.

[zen_desu]

Does it fail to boot? Are you sure that message is from the initramfs? Are you using a systemd profile?

Boots fine. I'm not sure the source, but it occurs immediately after initramfs finishes but before a udevd message and kernel spewing output. I'm actually on OpenRC. I could grep my installkernel verbose logs as well if anyone has a clue where to begin looking for clues.

I would imagine you wouldn't get this kind of error outside the initramfs because groups/uids should definitely be defined/usable.

Can you find that in a log anywhere?

[the_cynic]

I would imagine you wouldn't get this kind of error outside the initramfs because groups/uids should definitely be defined/usable.

Can you find that in a log anywhere?

Nothing really stands out in syslog from around boot times.

From about the time I'm seeing the message:

Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: PM: Magic number: 14:766:3
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: RAS: Correctable Errors collector initialized.
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: Lockdown: swapper/0: hibernation is restricted; see man kernel_lockdown.7
...
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: usb 3-4.2: device descriptor read/64, error -32
...
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: Run /init as init process
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: with arguments:
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: /init
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: nosplash
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: with environment:
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: HOME=/
Feb 23 01:01:02 tood kernel: TERM=linux
...
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS: device fsid b5bf2c3e-c20c-4070-bc5a-dbbe13de603b devid 1 transid 6194 /dev/sdb3 (8:19) scanned by mount (594)
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS info (device sdb3): first mount of filesystem b5bf2c3e-c20c-4070-bc5a-dbbe13de603b
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS info (device sdb3): using crc32c (crc32c-lib) checksum algorithm
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS info (device sdb3): enabling ssd optimizations
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS info (device sdb3): turning on async discard
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood kernel: BTRFS info (device sdb3): enabling free space tree
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood dracut: Mounted root filesystem /dev/sdb3
Feb 23 01:01:06 tood dracut: Switching root

All looks rather normal.

Including the USB error message just in case, but that particular log entry goes away, while the chown message stays.


Installkernel (dracut really) gives the following message during initramfs creation:
...
dracut: *** Including module: base ***
grep: /var/tmp/dracut.dRArqyB/initramfs/etc/shadow: No such file or directory
dracut: *** Including module: shell-interpreter ***
dracut: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut: *** Including modules done ***
...

I found that message highly suspect but I'm not sure the relevance or how to track down the reason for it. root:root definitely exists in /etc/shadow.

[netfab]

Hi,

I'm using sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin 6.1 branch, with default dracut configuration, and I'm seeing also this message at the very beginning of the boot process, just before the start of udev.

Code: Select all

$ genlop -t gentoo-kernel-bin
 * sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin

     Mon Jan 12 06:41:08 2026 >>> sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin-6.1.159
       merge time: 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

     Sat Feb 14 08:04:03 2026 >>> sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin-6.1.161
       merge time: 4 minutes and 44 seconds.

     Mon Feb 23 10:37:29 2026 >>> sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin-6.1.163
       merge time: 4 minutes and 26 seconds.

I think the error started to appear just after the 6.1.161 kernel update.