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  12   <h1>The rEFInd Boot Manager:<br />Configuring the Boot Manager</h1>
  13
  14   <p class="subhead">by Roderick W. Smith, <a
  15 href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
  16
  17 <p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 6/3/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.4.2</p>
  18
  19
  20 <p>I'm a technical writer and consultant specializing in Linux technologies. This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
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  86 <hr />
  87
  88 <p>This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the <a href="index.html">main page.</a></p>
  89
  90 <hr />
  91
  92 <p>Many casual users will be able to use rEFInd without making further changes; in its default configuration, the boot manager automatically detects all the EFI boot loader programs you have on your ESP (or your OS X boot partition, in the case of Macs) and displays icons for them. Sometimes, though, you may want to tweak rEFInd's configuration. Sometimes you can obtain your desired results by adjusting the filenames of your boot loaders. Other times, you can edit rEFInd's configuration file, <tt>refind.conf</tt>, which resides in the same directory as its binary file (<tt>refind.efi</tt> or whatever you've renamed it).</p>
  93
  94 <p>Broadly speaking, rEFInd's configuration file is broken down into two sections: <i>global options</i> and <i>OS stanzas.</i> The global options section sets options that apply globally&mdash;to set the timeout period, enable graphics or text mode, and so on. OS stanzas are optional, but if present, they enable you to add new boot options or replace the auto-detected options with customized ones. Both sections include configuration lines and comment lines, the latter being denoted by a leading hash mark (<tt>#</tt>). rEFInd ignores comment lines, so you can add explanatory text. The default configuration file includes numerous comments explaining each of the options.</p>
  95
  96 <h2>Hiding and Displaying EFI Boot Loaders</h2>
  97
  98 <p class="sidebar">ESPs use the FAT filesystem, which is case-insensitive. Unfortunately, at least one EFI implementation (Gigabyte's <a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/gb-hybrid-efi/">Hybrid EFI</a>) contains a bug that causes string comparisons that should be case-insensitive to actually be done in a case-sensitive way. This can cause files that are present to appear to be missing. rEFInd includes code to work around this bug in some situations, but not in all of them. If boot loaders appear to be missing, try changing the case on their filenames or on the <tt>EFI</tt> directory in the ESP. (It's coded as uppercase in rEFInd; but EFI loader filename extensions are coded as lowercase <tt>.efi</tt>. I made these choices because they seem to be the most common uses on real-world installations.)</p>
  99
 100 <p>Before delving into the configuration file, you should be aware of what you can do by renaming files. By default, rEFInd scans all the filesystems it can read for boot loaders. It scans most of the subdirectories of the <tt>EFI</tt> directory on every filesystem it can access for files with names that end in <tt>.efi</tt>. (rEFIt gives special treatment to the <tt>TOOLS</tt> subdirectory, where it looks for system tools rather than boot loaders.)</p>
 101
 102 <p>If you're like me, you may sometimes want to hide a boot loader from rEFInd's menu for a brief period&mdash;say, because you're testing a variety of configurations but you don't want them all to clutter the menu at once. You might also want to hide a boot loader if you want to override its default settings using a custom entry in <tt>refind.conf</tt> and you don't want an automatic search to duplicate that entry. You can easily hide a boot loader by removing or changing its <tt>.efi</tt> filename extension&mdash;for instance, changing <tt>grub.efi</tt> to <tt>grub</tt>.</p>
 103
 104 <p>Another way to hide a boot loader is to move it into rEFInd's own directory. In order to keep rEFInd from showing up in its own menu, it ignores boot loaders in its own directory. This obviously includes the rEFInd binary file itself, but also anything else you might store there.</p>
 105
 106 <p>In addition to hiding boot loaders, you can adjust their icons. You can do this in any of three ways for auto-detected boot loaders:</p>
 107
 108 <ul>
 109
 110 <li>You can place a boot loader in a directory with a name that matches one of rEFInd's standard icons, which take names of the form <tt>os_<tt class="variable">name</tt>.icns</tt>. To use this icon, you would place the boot loader in the directory called <tt class="variable">name</tt>.</li>
 111
 112 <li>You can name an icon file after your boot loader, but with an extension of <tt>.icns</tt>. For instance, if you're using <tt class="variable">loader</tt><tt>.efi</tt>, you would name the icon file <tt class="variable">loader</tt><tt>.icns</tt>. (If you use the <tt>scan_all_linux_kernels</tt> option, you can give an icon for a Linux kernel without a <tt>.efi</tt> extension a name based on the kernel name but with a <tt>.icns</tt> extension&mdash;for instance, <tt>bzImage-3.3.2.icns</tt> will serve as the icon for the <tt>bzImage-3.3.2</tt> kernel.) These icon files should be 128x128 images in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Icon_Image_format">Apple's ICNS format.</a> You can create such files easily in OS X or convert PNG files to ICNS format with <a href="http://icns.sourceforge.net/">libicns.</a></li>
 113
 114 <li>If you're booting OS X from its standard boot loader, or if you place a boot loader file in the root directory of a partition, you can create a file called <tt>.VolumeIcon.icns</tt> that holds an icon file. OS X uses this file for its volume icons, so rEFInd picks up these icons automatically, provided they include 128x128 bitmaps.</li>
 115
 116 </ul>
 117
 118 <p>As a special case, rEFInd assigns icons to the Windows and OS X boot loaders based on their conventional locations, so they get suitable icons even though they don't follow these rules.</p>
 119
 120 <p>In addition to the main OS tag icon, you can set the <i>badge</i> icon for a volume by creating a file called <tt>.VolumeBadge.icns</tt> in the root directory of a partition. This icon file must include a 32x32 bitmap. If present, it replaces the disk-type icons that are overlaid on the main OS icon. If you use this feature, the badge is applied to all the boot loaders read from the disk, not just those stored in the root directory or the Apple boot loader location. You could use this feature to set a custom badge for different specific disks or to help differentiate multiple OS X installations on one computer.</p>
 121
 122 <h2>Adjusting the Global Configuration</h2>
 123
 124 <p>You can adjust many of rEFInd's options by editing its <tt>refind.conf</tt> file. You can use any text editor you like for the job, but be sure it saves the file in plain ASCII text, not in a word processing format. (In theory, a UTF-16 encoding should also work, but I've not tried that myself.) Note that the EFI shell includes its own editor. If you need to make a change before you launch an OS, you can launch a shell, change to the rEFInd directory, and type <b><tt>edit refind.conf</tt></b> to edit the file. This EFI editor is quite primitive, but it gets the job done. After editing, you'll need to reboot for rEFInd to read the changed configuration file.</p>
 125
 126 <p>Global configuration file options consist of a name token followed by one or more parameters, as in:</p>
 127
 128 <pre class="listing">
 129 timeout 20
 130 </pre>
 131
 132 <p>This example's name token is <tt>timeout</tt> and its parameter is <tt>20</tt>. The net effect of this line is to set the timeout period to 20 seconds&mdash;rEFInd will wait 20 seconds before launching the default boot loader. Some options can take multiple parameters. These may be separated by commas, spaces, or tabs. The global options are summarized in the Table 1.</p>
 133
 134 <table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Table 1: Global options in <tt>refind.conf</tt>"><a name="table1"><caption><b>Table 1: Global options in <tt>refind.conf</tt></b></caption></a>
 135 <tr>
 136    <th>Token</th>
 137    <th>Possible parameters</th>
 138    <th>Explanation</th>
 139 </tr>
 140 <tr>
 141    <td><tt>timeout</tt></td>
 142    <td>numeric value</td>
 143    <td>Sets the timeout period in seconds. If <tt>0</tt>, the timeout is disabled&mdash;rEFInd waits indefinitely for user input.</td>
 144 </tr>
 145 <tr>
 146    <td><tt>hideui</tt></td>
 147    <td><tt>banner</tt>, <tt>label</tt>, <tt>singleuser</tt>, <tt>hwtest</tt>, <tt>arrows</tt>, or <tt>all</tt></td>
 148    <td>Removes the specified user interface features. <tt>banner</tt> removes the banner graphic, <tt>label</tt> removes the text description of each tag and the countdown timer, <tt>singleuser</tt> removes the single-user option from the Mac OS sub-menu, <tt>hwtest</tt> removes the Mac OS hardware test option, <tt>arrows</tt> removes the arrows to the right or left of the OS tags when rEFInd finds too many OSes to display simultaneously, and <tt>all</tt> removes all of these options. You can specify multiple parameters with this option. The default is to set none of these values.</td>
 149 </tr>
 150 <tr>
 151    <td><tt>icons_dir</tt></td>
 152    <td>directory name</td>
 153    <td>Specifies a directory in which custom icons may be found. This directory should contain files with the same names as the files in the standard <tt>icons</tt> directory. The directory name is specified relative to the directory in which the rEFInd binary resides. The standard <tt>icons</tt> directory is searched if an icon can't be found in the one specified by <tt>icons_dir</tt>, so you can use this location to redefine just some icons.</td>
 154 </tr>
 155 <tr>
 156    <td><tt>banner</tt></td>
 157    <td>filename</td>
 158    <td>Specifies a custom banner file to replaced the rEFInd banner image. The file should be a BMP image with a color depth of 24, 8, 4, or 1 bits. The file path is relative to the directory where <tt>refind.efi</tt> is stored.</td>
 159 </tr>
 160 <tr>
 161    <td><tt>selection_big</tt></td>
 162    <td>filename</td>
 163    <td>Specifies a graphics file that can be used to highlight the OS selection icons. This should be a 144x144 image in BMP format, stored in rEFInd's main directory.</td>
 164 </tr>
 165 <tr>
 166    <td><tt>selection_small</tt></td>
 167    <td>filename</td>
 168    <td>Like <tt>selection_big</tt>, this sets an alternate highlight graphic, but for the smaller utility tags on the second row. This should be a 64x64 image in BMP format, stored in rEFInd's main directory.</td>
 169 </tr>
 170 <tr>
 171    <td><tt>showtools</tt></td>
 172    <td><tt>shell</tt>, <tt>gptsync</tt>, <tt>about</tt>, <tt>exit</tt>, <tt>shutdown</tt>, and <tt>reboot</tt></td>
 173    <td>Specifies which tool tags to display on the second row. <tt>shell</tt> launches an EFI shell, <tt>gptsync</tt> launches a tool that creates a hybrid MBR, <tt>about</tt> displays information about the program, <tt>exit</tt> terminates rEFInd, <tt>shutdown</tt> shuts down the computer (or reboots it, on UEFI PCs), and <tt>reboot</tt> reboots the computer. The tags appear in the order in which you specify them. The default is <tt>shell, about, shutdown, reboot</tt>.</td>
 174 </tr>
 175 <tr>
 176    <td><tt>textonly</tt></td>
 177    <td>None</td>
 178    <td>rEFInd defaults to a graphical mode; however, if you prefer to do without the flashy graphics, you can run it in text mode by including this option.</td>
 179 </tr>
 180 <tr>
 181    <td><tt>resolution</tt></td>
 182    <td>Two integer values</td>
 183    <td>Sets the video resolution used by rEFInd; takes a width and a height as options. For instance, <tt>resolution 1024 768</tt> sets the resolution to 1024x768. If you set a resolution that doesn't work on a UEFI-based system, rEFInd displays a message along with a list of valid modes. On an system built around EFI 1.<i>x</i> (such as a Mac), setting an incorrect resolution fails silently; you'll get the system's default resolution. You'll also get the system's default resolution if you set either resolution value to <tt>0</tt> or if you pass anything but two numbers. (Note that passing a resolution with an <tt>x</tt>, as in <tt>1024x768</tt>, will be interpreted as <i>one</i> option and so will cause the default resolution to be used.) Also, be aware that it is possible to set a valid resolution for your video card that's invalid for your monitor. If you do this, your monitor will go blank until you've booted an OS that resets the video mode.</td>
 184 </tr>
 185 <tr>
 186    <td><tt>use_graphics_for</tt></td>
 187    <td><tt>osx</tt>, <tt>linux</tt>, <tt>elilo</tt>, <tt>grub</tt>, and <tt>windows</tt></td>
 188    <td>Ordinarily, rEFInd clears the screen and displays basic boot information when launching any OS but Mac OS X. For OS X, the default behavior is to clear the screen to the default background color and display no information. You can specify the simpler Mac-style behavior by specifying the OSes or boot loaders you want to work this way with this option. (OSes that should use text-mode displays should be omitted from this list.) Note that this option doesn't affect what the boot loader does; it may display graphics, text, or nothing at all. Thus, the effect of this option is likely to last for just a fraction of a second. On at least one firmware (used on some Gigabyte boards), setting <tt>use_graphics_for linux</tt> is required to avoid a system hang when launching Linux via its EFI stub loader.</td>
 189 </tr>
 190 <tr>
 191    <td><tt>scan_driver_dirs</tt></td>
 192    <td>directory path(s)</td>
 193    <td>Scans the specified directory or directories for EFI driver files. If rEFInd discovers <tt>.efi</tt> files in those directories, they're loaded and activated as drivers. This option sets directories to scan <i>in addition to</i> the <tt>drivers</tt> subdirectory of the rEFInd installation directory, which is always scanned, if present.</td>
 194 </tr>
 195 <tr>
 196    <td><tt>scanfor</tt></td>
 197    <td><tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, <tt>optical</tt>, <tt>hdbios</tt>, <tt>biosexternal</tt>, <tt>cd</tt>, and <tt>manual</tt></td>
 198    <td>Tells rEFInd what methods to use to locate boot loaders. The <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, and <tt>optical</tt> parameters tell rEFInd to scan for EFI boot loaders on internal, external, and optical (CD, DVD, and Blu-ray) devices, respectively. The <tt>hdbios</tt>, <tt>biosexternal</tt>, and <tt>cd</tt> parameters are similar, but scan for BIOS boot loaders. (Note that the BIOS options are likely to be useless on UEFI PCs.) The <tt>manual</tt> parameter tells rEFInd to scan the configuration file for manual settings. You can specify multiple parameters to have the program scan for multiple boot loader types. When you do so, the order determines the order in which the boot loaders appear in the menu. The default is <tt>internal, external, optical</tt>.</td>
 199 </tr>
 200 <tr>
 201    <td><tt>also_scan_dirs</tt></td>
 202    <td>directory path(s)</td>
 203    <td>Adds the specified directory or directories to the directory list that rEFInd scans for EFI boot loaders when <tt>scanfor</tt> includes the <tt>internal</tt>, <tt>external</tt>, or <tt>optical</tt> options. Directories are specified relative to the filesystem's root directory. If this option is used, it's applied to <i>all</i> the filesystems that rEFInd scans. If a specified directory doesn't exist, rEFInd ignores it (no error results).</td>
 204 </tr>
 205 <tr>
 206    <td><tt>dont_scan_dirs</tt> or <tt>don't_scan_dirs</tt></td>
 207    <td>directory path(s)</td>
 208    <td>Adds the specified directory or directories to a directory "blacklist"&mdash;these directories are <i>not</i> scanned for boot loaders. This may be useful to keep duplicate boot loaders out of the menu (say, if <tt>EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi</tt> is a duplicate of another boot loader); or to keep drivers or utilities out of the boot menu, if you've stored them in a subdirectory of <tt>EFI</tt>. This option takes precedence over <tt>also_scan_dirs</tt>; if a directory appears in both lists, it will <i>not</i> be scanned.</td>
 209 </tr>
 210 <tr>
 211    <td><tt>scan_all_linux_kernels</tt></td>
 212    <td>None</td>
 213    <td>When set, causes rEFInd to add Linux kernels (files with names that begin with <tt>vmlinuz</tt> or <tt>bzImage</tt>) to the list of EFI boot loaders, even if they lack <tt>.efi</tt> filename extensions. The hope is that this will simplify use of rEFInd on distributions that provide kernels with EFI stub loader support but that don't give those kernels names that end in <tt>.efi</tt>. Of course, the kernels must still be stored on a filesystem that rEFInd can read, and in a directory that it scans. (<a href="drivers.html">Drivers</a> and the <tt>also_scan_dirs</tt> options can help with those issues.) Note that this option can cause unwanted files to be improperly detected and given loader tags, such as older kernels without EFI stub loader support. For this reason, it's disabled by default.</td>
 214 </tr>
 215 <tr>
 216    <td><tt>default_selection</tt></td>
 217    <td>A substring of a boot loader's title; or a numeric position</td>
 218    <td>Sets the default boot OS based on the loader's title, which appears in the main menu beneath the icons when you select the loader. You can enter any substring of the title as the <tt>default_selection</tt>, so long as it's two or more characters in length. It's best to use a unique substring, since rEFInd stops searching when it finds the first match. Because rEFInd sorts entries within a directory in descending order by file modification time, if you specify a directory (or volume name, for loaders in a partition's root directory) as the <tt>default_selection</tt>, the most recent loader in that directory will be the default. One-character entries are matched against the first character of the title, except for digits, which refer to the numeric order of the boot loader entries. (Note: In version 0.2.0, only the first character of this entry was used, and was matched against the first character of the title.)</td>
 219 </tr>
 220 </table>
 221
 222 <p>Prior to version 0.2.4, rEFInd supported a token called <tt>disable</tt>, whose function partially overlapped with <tt>hideui</tt>. Version 0.2.4 merges many of the features of these two tokens into <tt>hideui</tt> and creates the new <tt>showtools</tt> option, which provides the remaining functionality in a more flexible way.</p>
 223
 224 <p>As an example of rEFInd configuration, consider the following <tt>refind.conf</tt> file:</p>
 225
 226 <pre class="listing">
 227 # Sample refind.conf file
 228 timeout 5
 229 banner custom.bmp
 230 scan_driver_dirs drivers,EFI/tools/drivers
 231 scanfor manual,external,optical
 232 default_selection elilo
 233 </pre>
 234
 235 <p>This example sets a timeout of 5 seconds; loads a custom graphic file called <tt>custom.bmp</tt> from the directory in which <tt>refind.efi</tt> resides; scans the <tt>drivers</tt> and <tt>EFI/tools/drivers</tt> directories for EFI drivers; uses manual boot loader configuration but also scans for external EFI boot loaders and EFI boot loaders on optical discs; and sets the default boot loader to the first loader found that includes the string <tt>elilo</tt>. Of course, since this file specifies use of manual boot loader configuration, it's not complete; you'll need to add at least one OS stanza to be able to boot from anything but an external disk or optical drive, as described shortly.</p>
 236
 237 <h2>Creating OS Stanzas</h2>
 238
 239 <p>OS stanzas in rEFInd are similar to those in GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, or ELILO. You can use them to add configuration options to those that are auto-detected. You cannot modify the auto-detected options, though; if you just want to tweak one OS's configuration, you have several options, none of which is ideal:</p>
 240
 241 <ul>
 242
 243 <li>You can move or rename the boot loader file for the boot loader you want to tweak.</li>
 244
 245 <li>You can disable all auto-detection options and add manual configurations for all your boot loaders, even those that work fine when auto-detected.</li>
 246
 247 <li>You can put up with having duplicate tags in your OS list.</li>
 248
 249 </ul>
 250
 251 <p>Each OS stanza begins with the keyword <tt>menuentry</tt>, a name for the entry, and an open curly brace (<tt>{</tt>). Subsequent lines constitute the bulk of the stanza, which concludes with a line containing nothing but a close curly brace (<tt>}</tt>). Table 2 summarizes the keywords that you can include in a stanza.</p>
 252
 253 <table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Table 2: OS stanza definitions in <tt>refind.conf</tt>"><a name="table2"><caption><b>Table 2: OS stanza definitions in <tt>refind.conf</tt></b></caption></a>
 254 <tr>
 255    <th>Token</th>
 256    <th>Possible parameters</th>
 257    <th>Explanation</th>
 258 </tr>
 259 <tr>
 260    <td><tt>menuentry</tt></td>
 261    <td>name for the entry</td>
 262    <td>Sets the name that's displayed along with the icon for this entry. If the name should contain a space, it <i>must</i> be enclosed in quotes. Following the name, an open curly brace (<tt>{</tt>) ends the <tt>menuentry</tt> line.</td>
 263 </tr>
 264 <tr>
 265    <td><tt>volume</tt></td>
 266    <td>filesystem label</td>
 267    <td>Sets the volume that's used for subsequent file accesses (by <tt>icon</tt> and <tt>loader</tt>, and by implication by <tt>initrd</tt> if <tt>loader</tt> follows <tt>volume</tt>). You pass this token a filesystem's label or a volume number. A filesystem label is typically displayed under the volume's icon in file managers and that rEFInd displays on its menu at the end of the boot prompt string. If this label isn't unique, the first volume with the specified label is used. The matching is nominally case-insensitive, but on some EFIs it's case-sensitive. If a filesystem has no label, you can use a volume number followed by a colon, such as <tt>0:</tt> to refer to the first filesystem or <tt>1:</tt> to refer to the second. The assignment of numbers is arbitrary and may not be consistent across boots, though. It might change if you insert an optical disc or plug in a USB flash drive, for instance. If this option is not set, the volume defaults to the one from which rEFInd launched.</td>
 268 </tr>
 269 <tr>
 270    <td><tt>loader</tt></td>
 271    <td>filename</td>
 272    <td>Sets the filename for the boot loader. You may use either Unix-style slashes (<tt>/</tt>) or Windows/EFI-style backslashes (<tt>\</tt>) to separate directory elements. In either case, the references are to files on the ESP from which rEFInd launched or to the one identified by a preceding <tt>volume</tt> token. This option should normally be the first in the body of an OS stanza; if it's not, some other options may be ignored. An exception is if you want to boot a loader from a volume other than the one on which rEFInd resides, in which case <tt>volume</tt> should precede <tt>loader</tt>.</td>
 273 </tr>
 274 <tr>
 275    <td><tt>initrd</tt></td>
 276    <td>filename</td>
 277    <td>Sets the filename for a Linux kernel's initial RAM disk (initrd). This option is useful only when booting a Linux kernel that includes an <a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/efistub.html">EFI stub loader</a>, which enables you to boot a kernel without the benefit of a separate boot loader. When booted in this way, though, you must normally pass an initrd filename to the boot loader. You must specify the complete EFI path to the initrd file with this option, as in <tt>initrd EFI/linux/initrd-3.3.0-rc7.img</tt>. You'll also have to use the <tt>options</tt> line to pass the Linux root filesystem, and perhaps other options (as in <tt>options "root=/dev/sda4 ro"</tt>). The initial RAM disk file must reside on the same volume as the kernel.</td>
 278 </tr>
 279 <tr>
 280    <td><tt>icon</tt></td>
 281    <td>filename</td>
 282    <td>Sets the filename for an icon for the menu. If you omit this item, a default icon will be used, based on rEFInd's auto-detection algorithms. The filename should be a complete path from the root of the current directory, not relative to the default icons subdirectory or the one set via <tt>icons_dir</tt>.</td>
 283 </tr>
 284 <tr>
 285    <td><tt>ostype</tt></td>
 286    <td><tt>MacOS</tt>, <tt>Linux</tt>, <tt>ELILO</tt>, <tt>Windows</tt>, <tt>XOM</tt></td>
 287    <td>Determines the options that are available on a sub-menu obtained by pressing the Insert key with an OS selected in the main menu. If you omit this option, rEFInd selects options using an auto-detection algorithm. Note that this option is case-sensitive.</td>
 288 </tr>
 289 <tr>
 290    <td><tt>graphics</tt></td>
 291    <td><tt>on</tt> or <tt>off</tt></td>
 292    <td>Enables or disables a graphical boot mode. This option has an effect only on Macintoshes; UEFI PCs seem to be unaffected by it.</td>
 293 </tr>
 294 <tr>
 295    <td><tt>options</tt></td>
 296    <td>options passed to the boot loader</td>
 297    <td>Pass arbitrary options to your boot loader with this line. Note that if the option string should contain spaces (as it often should) or characters that should not be modified by rEFInd's option parser (such as slashes or commas), it <i>must</i> be enclosed in quotes.</td>
 298 </tr>
 299 <tr>
 300    <td><tt>disabled</tt></td>
 301    <td>None</td>
 302    <td>Disable an entry. This is often easier than commenting out an entire entry if you want to temporarily disable it.</td>
 303 </tr>
 304 <tr>
 305    <td><tt>submenuentry</tt></td>
 306    <td>submenu entry name and tokens</td>
 307    <td>This keyword identifies a submenu entry, as described in more detail shortly.</td>
 308 </tr>
 309 </table>
 310
 311 <p>As an example, consider the following entries:</p>
 312
 313 <pre class="listing">
 314 menuentry "Ubuntu Linux" {
 315     loader /EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi
 316     disabled
 317 }
 318
 319 menuentry Gentoo {
 320     icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_gentoo.icns
 321     volume G_KERNELS
 322     loader \kernels\bzImage-3.3.0-rc7
 323     initrd \kernels\initrd-3.3.0-rc7.img
 324     options "root=/dev/sda3 ro"
 325 }
 326
 327 menuentry "Windows via shell script" {
 328     icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_win.icns
 329     loader \EFI\tools\shell.efi
 330     options "fs0:\EFI\tools\launch_windows.nsh"
 331 }
 332 </pre>
 333
 334 <p>This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Gentoo Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the first two entries use different directory separators, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the <tt>ubuntu</tt> directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (<tt>os_ubuntu.icns</tt>). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the <tt>disabled</tt> line.</p>
 335
 336 <p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> Under Linux, you can learn a filesystem's label by using <tt>blkid</tt>, as in <tt class="userinput">blkid /dev/sda1</tt>. The filesystem's label, if set, is identified by the keyword <tt>LABEL</tt> in the output.</p>
 337
 338 <p>The Gentoo entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the <tt>icon</tt> line after the <tt>volume</tt> line.) This entry uses the <tt>volume</tt> token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem called <tt>G_KERNELS</tt>. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the <tt>initrd</tt> line and free-form options using the <tt>options</tt> line. Note that the kernel filename does <i>not</i> include a <tt>.efi</tt> extension, which keeps rEFInd from picking up the kernel file in its auto-scans.</p>
 339
 340 <p>The <tt>Windows via shell script</tt> entry may seem puzzling, but its purpose is to launch an OS (Windows in this case) after performing additional pre-boot initialization, which is handled by an EFI shell script. This works because you can pass the name of a shell script to an EFI shell&mdash;the script is named on the stanza's <tt>options</tt> line, using EFI file notation. The shell script, in turn, does whatever it needs to do and then launches the OS's boot loader:</p>
 341
 342 <pre class="listing">mm 0003003E 8 -pci
 343 fs0:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi</pre>
 344
 345 <p>This example writes data to the computer's PCI bus via the EFI shell's <tt>mm</tt> command and then launches Windows. Chances are you won't need to engage in such operations, and I do <i>not</i> recommend you try this exact example unless you know what you're doing! This command was required to activate the video hardware on a computer of a person with whom I corresponded prior to booting Windows, but such needs are rare.</p>
 346
 347 <p>You can combine these OS stanzas with the global <tt>refind.conf</tt> options presented earlier. The result would contain just two entries on the rEFInd boot menu (for Gentoo and Windows, since the Ubuntu entry is disabled), unless rEFInd found other boot options on an external or optical disk.</p>
 348
 349 <h2>Creating Submenu Entries</h2>
 350
 351 <p>As described on the <a href="using.html">Using rEFInd</a> page, rEFInd can present a menu of options for certain loader tags when you press the Insert, F2, or + key. rEFInd does this automatically when it detects Mac OS X or ELILO boot loaders, or when you set the OS type via the <tt>ostype</tt> option. The Mac OS X boot loader, in particular, accepts various options that you can use to boot in various ways.</p>
 352
 353 <p>Sometimes, you might want to create your own custom submenu entries, and rEFInd 0.2.1 and later enable you to do this. To create a custom submenu, you use the <tt>submenuentry</tt> keyword <i>inside</i> a <tt>menuentry</tt> stanza. Normally, you'll set the submenu definitions <i>after</i> you've set the main menu options, since the submenu options take the main menu options as defult, and so the main options must be set first. Like a <tt>menuentry</tt> stanza, a <tt>submenuentry</tt> definition begins with the keyword, the name of the item, and an open curly brace (<tt>{</tt>). It continues until a close curly brace (<tt>}</tt>). A submenu definition can use the keywords described in <a href="#table3">Table 3.</a> Except as otherwise noted, using an option of a given name completely overrides the setting in the main stanza.</p>
 354
 355 <table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="2" summary="Table 3: Submenu keywords in <tt>refind.conf</tt>"><a name="table3"><caption><b>Table 3: Submenu keywords in <tt>refind.conf</tt></b></caption></a>
 356 <tr>
 357    <th>Token</th>
 358    <th>Possible parameters</th>
 359    <th>Explanation</th>
 360 </tr>
 361 <tr>
 362    <td><tt>submenuentry</tt></td>
 363    <td>name for the entry</td>
 364    <td>Sets the name that's displayed for this entry on the submenu page. If the name should contain a space, it <i>must</i> be enclosed in quotes. Following the name, an open curly brace (<tt>{</tt>) ends the <tt>submenuentry</tt> line.</td>
 365 </tr>
 366 <tr>
 367    <td><tt>loader</tt></td>
 368    <td>filename</td>
 369    <td>Sets the filename for the boot loader, as described in <a href="#table2">Table 2.</a> Note that the loader is read from whatever filesystem is specified by the main stanza's <tt>volume</tt> option, provided that option precedes the submenu definition.</td>
 370 </tr>
 371 <tr>
 372    <td><tt>initrd</tt></td>
 373    <td>filename</td>
 374    <td>Sets the filename for a Linux kernel's initial RAM disk (initrd), as described in <a href="#table2">Table 2.</a> If you want to eliminate the initrd specification, you should use this keyword alone, with no options. You might do this because your main entry is for a Linux kernel with EFI stub support and this submenu entry launches ELILO, which sets the initrd in its own configuration file.</td>
 375 </tr>
 376 <tr>
 377    <td><tt>graphics</tt></td>
 378    <td><tt>on</tt> or <tt>off</tt></td>
 379    <td>Enables or disables a graphical boot mode, as described in <a href="#table2">Table 2.</a></td>
 380 </tr>
 381 <tr>
 382    <td><tt>options</tt></td>
 383    <td>options passed to the boot loader</td>
 384    <td>Pass arbitrary options to your boot loader with this line, as described in <a href="#table2">Table 2.</a> As with <tt>initrd</tt>, you can eliminate all options by passing this keyword alone on a line.</td>
 385 </tr>
 386 <tr>
 387    <td><tt>add_options</tt></td>
 388    <td>options passed to the boot loader</td>
 389    <td>This token works just like <tt>options</tt>, except that instead of <i>replacing</i> the default options, it causes the specified options to be <i>added to</i> those specified in the main stanza listing's <tt>options</tt> line.</td>
 390 </tr>
 391 <tr>
 392    <td><tt>disabled</tt></td>
 393    <td>None</td>
 394    <td>Disable a submenu entry. This is often easier than commenting out an entire entry if you want to temporarily disable it.</td>
 395 </tr>
 396 </table>
 397
 398 <p>The following menu entry illustrates the use of submenu entries. This is a variant of the second entry presented earlier:</p>
 399
 400 <pre class="listing">
 401 menuentry Gentoo {
 402     loader \EFI\linux\bzImage-3.3.0-rc7
 403     initrd \EFI\linux\initrd-3.3.0-rc7.img
 404     options "root=/dev/sda3 ro"
 405     icon \EFI\refind\icons\os_gentoo.icns
 406     submenuentry "single-user mode" {
 407         add_options "single"
 408     }
 409     submenuentry "3.3.0 final release kernel" {
 410         loader \EFI\linux\bzImage-3.3.0
 411         initrd \EFI\linux\initrd-3.3.0.img
 412     }
 413     submenuentry "boot via ELILO" {
 414         loader \EFI\elilo\elilo.efi
 415         initrd
 416         options
 417     }
 418 }
 419 </pre>
 420
 421 <p>The main menu item for this entry won't look different with the submenus defined than without them; but if you press the Insert key, you'll see the submenu items:</p>
 422
 423     <br /><center><img src="manual-submenu.png" align="center" width="372"
 424     height="272" alt="Manually defining submenus enables you to customize
 425     your boot options." border=2></center><br />
 426
 427 <p>The main menu item appears at the top of the list&mdash;<tt>Run bzImage-3.3.0-rc7</tt> in this example. The three submenus defined in this example's configuration file appear next, enabling you to launch in single-user mode, run the 3.3.0 release kernel, or boot via ELILO, respectively. Submenus also include an item called <tt>Return to Main Menu</tt> that does just as it says. (Alternatively, you can return to the main menu by pressing the Esc key.)</p>
 428
 429 <p>This example illustrates some of the things you can do with submenu entries:</p>
 430
 431 <ul>
 432
 433 <li>You can add kernel options when booting via the EFI stub loader&mdash;to launch single-user mode, to add graphical boot options, or what have you.</li>
 434
 435 <li>You can change kernel options when booting via the EFI stub loader&mdash;to <i>remove</i> graphical boot options, to boot to a different root device, and so on.</li>
 436
 437 <li>You can change your kernel and/or initial RAM disk when booting via the EFI stub loader.</li>
 438
 439 <li>You can give users a choice of boot loaders. In this example, the main option boots via the kernel stub loader, but the submenu gives users the chance to boot via ELILO instead. In fact, you could even boot two entirely different OSes from manually-defined submenu entries, although that could be confusing.</li>
 440
 441 </ul>
 442
 443 <hr />
 444
 445 <p>copyright &copy; 2012 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
 446
 447 <p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>
 448
 449 <p>If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at <a href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com.</a> Thanks.</p>
 450
 451 <p><a href="index.html">Go to the main rEFInd page</a></p>
 452
 453 <p><a href="linux.html">Learn about how to use EFI drivers with rEFInd</a></p>
 454
 455   <p><a href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/">Return</a> to my main Web page.</p>
 456 </body>
 457 </html>