There was an optional ‘make initrd’ step in the DragonFly build process, where you can create a small binary to use for mounting encrypted root drives.
Aaron LI has removed mkinitrd in favor of ‘make initrd’, which builds a separate binary to use in exactly those situations. See the commit message for more detail. It incidentally creates a ‘/rescue’ directory and works as a rescue ramdisk, similar to other BSDs, if you should ever need it. (See updated MOTD for details)
Hi. The packed initrd image at ‘/boot/kernel/initrd.img.gz’ can be used as a rescue ramdisk (choose from the boot menu to go to the ‘rescue ramdisk’, or when the real root mount fails).
The ‘/rescue’ tools can be used directly when you come across problems with the base system’s tools, avoiding rebooting into the rescue mode.
I can imagine situations where working rescue tools – without rebooting – could be really, really handy.