init of mkinitfs does not handle kernel parameter well.
Per https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.14/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.html, I can use “* to wrap a value. But init script does not handle this. Apparently, it gets the whole string including the *”. So it misdetects its “content type” (URI or not) and be wrong in following steps.
(from redmine: issue id 9506, created on 2018-10-03)