Viewing the initrd image

initrd is a RAM disk file image of the kernel used at the time of boot. On Ubuntu it is created using mkinitramfs or update-initramfs commands when a new kernel is installed. This image is a gunzip\cpio archive.

To see the contents do the following

1. Copy the initrd image which you want to open into a directory somewhere /home/node/temp. Let's say it is initrd-2.6.24-generic

2. Do the following now:

cat initrd-2.6.24-generic | gunzip | cpio -ivdm

OR,

bzcat initrd-2.6.24-generic | cpio -ivdm