diff --git a/stand/kboot/Makefile b/stand/kboot/Makefile
--- a/stand/kboot/Makefile
+++ b/stand/kboot/Makefile
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 
 # Architecture-specific loader code
 SRCS=		crt1.c conf.c vers.c main.c host_syscalls.c hostcons.c hostdisk.c kbootfdt.c gfx_fb_stub.c
+SRCS+=		init.c
 SRCS+=		termios.c
 
 CFLAGS.gfx_fb_stub.c += -I${SRCTOP}/contrib/pnglite -I${SRCTOP}/sys/teken
diff --git a/stand/kboot/init.c b/stand/kboot/init.c
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stand/kboot/init.c
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+/*-
+ * Copyright (c) 2022, Netflix, Inc.
+ *
+ * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
+ */
+
+/*
+ * Mini-init(8) so we can run as init/pid 1 in a LinuxBoot environment.
+ */
+
+#include "stand.h"
+#include "host_syscall.h"
+#include "kboot.h"
+
+/*
+ * Create a 'standard' early boot environment. Cribbed from the things that
+ * sysvinit, u-root, and initramfs-tools do. This is a minimal environment
+ * for modern Linux systems, though the /tmp, /run and /var stuff can likely
+ * be done inside the initrd image itself (as can creating the mount points
+ * for /proc, /dev and /sys).
+ *
+ * Note: We ignore errors here. There's no stderr to report them to yet. These
+ * operations generally can't fail, but if they do, we may not have the ability
+ * to report them later.
+ */
+static void
+init_fs_env(void)
+{
+	/*
+	 * Create directories for mandatory filesystems and mount them.
+	 */
+	host_mkdir("/proc", 0555);
+	host_mount("proc", "/proc", "proc", MS_RELATIME, "");
+	host_mkdir("/sys", 0555);
+	host_mount("sysfs", "/sys", "sysfs", MS_RELATIME, "");
+	host_mkdir("/dev", 0755);
+	host_mount("devtmpfs", "/dev", "devtmpfs", MS_RELATIME,
+	    "mode=0755,nr_inodes=0");
+
+	/*
+	 * Create compat links: /dev/fd lives in /proc, and needs some help to
+	 * get setup.
+	 */
+	host_symlink("/proc/self/fd", "/dev/fd");
+	host_symlink("fd/0", "/dev/stdin");
+	host_symlink("fd/1", "/dev/stdout");
+	host_symlink("fd/2", "/dev/stderr");
+
+
+	/*
+	 * Unsure if we need this, but create a sane /tmp just in case that's useful.
+	 * and point /run over to it.
+	 */
+	host_mkdir("/tmp", 01777);
+	host_mount("tmpfs", "/tmp", "tmpfs", MS_RELATIME, "size=10%,mode=1777");
+	host_symlink("/tmp", "/run");
+
+	/*
+	 * Unsure the loader needs /var and /var/log, but they are easy to
+	 * create.
+	 */
+	host_mkdir("/var", 0555);
+	host_mkdir("/var/lock", 0555);
+	host_symlink("/tmp", "/var/tmp");
+}
+
+static void
+init_tty(void)
+{
+	int fd;
+
+	/*
+	 * sysvinit asks the linux kernel to convert the CTRL-ALT-DEL to a SIGINT,
+	 * but we skip that.
+	 */
+
+	/*
+	 * Setup /dev/console as stdin/out/err
+	 */
+	host_close(0);
+	host_close(1);
+	host_close(2);
+	fd = host_open("/dev/console", HOST_O_RDWR | HOST_O_NOCTTY, 0);
+	host_dup(fd);
+	host_dup(fd);
+#if 0
+	/*
+	 * I think we may need to put it in 'raw' mode, but maybe not. Linux
+	 * sysvinit sets it into 'sane' mode with several tweaks. Not enabled at
+	 * the moment since host console initialization seems sufficient.
+	 */
+	struct host_termios tty;
+
+	host_cfmakeraw(&tty);
+	host_tcsetattr(fd, HOST_TCANOW, &tty);
+	host_tcflush(fd, HOST_TCIOFLUSH)
+#endif
+}
+
+static void
+init_sig(void)
+{
+	/*
+	 * since we're running as init, we need to catch some signals
+	 */
+
+	/*
+	 * setup signals here
+	 *
+	 * sysvinit catches a lot of signals, but the boot loader needn't catch
+	 * so many since we don't do as much as it does. If we need to, put the
+	 * signal catching / ignoring code here. If we implement a 'shell'
+	 * function to spawn a sub-shell, we'll likely need to do a lot more.
+	 */
+}
+
+void
+do_init(void)
+{
+	/*
+	 * Only pid 1 is init
+	 */
+	if (host_getpid() != 1)
+		return;
+
+	init_fs_env();
+	init_tty();
+	init_sig();
+}
diff --git a/stand/kboot/kboot.h b/stand/kboot/kboot.h
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stand/kboot/kboot.h
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+/*-
+ * Copyright (c) 2022, Netflix, Inc.
+ *
+ * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
+ */
+
+#ifndef KBOOT_H
+#define KBOOT_H
+
+void do_init(void);
+
+#endif /* KBOOT_H */
diff --git a/stand/kboot/main.c b/stand/kboot/main.c
--- a/stand/kboot/main.c
+++ b/stand/kboot/main.c
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 #include <machine/cpufunc.h>
 #include <bootstrap.h>
 #include "host_syscall.h"
-
+#include "kboot.h"
 
 struct arch_switch	archsw;
 extern void *_end;
@@ -261,8 +261,11 @@
 	const size_t heapsize = 15*1024*1024;
 	const char *bootdev;
 
+	/* Give us a sane world if we're running as init */
+	do_init();
+
 	/*
-	 * Set the heap to one page after the end of the loader.
+	 * Setup the heap 15MB should be plenty
 	 */
 	heapbase = host_getmem(heapsize);
 	setheap(heapbase, heapbase + heapsize);