the GRUB manual

The GRand Unied Bootloader, version 0.95, 11 May 2004.

Gordon Matzigkeit Yoshinori K. Okuji

Copyright c 1999,2000,2001,2002,2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modied versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modied versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by Free Software Foundation.

Chapter 1: Introduction to GRUB

1 Introduction to GRUB
1.1 Overview
Briey, a boot loader is the rst software program that runs when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and transferring control to an operating system kernel software (such as Linux or GNU Mach). The kernel, in turn, initializes the rest of the operating system (e.g. a GNU system). GNU GRUB is a very powerful boot loader, which can load a wide variety of free operating systems, as well as proprietary operating systems with chain-loading1 . GRUB is designed to address the complexity of booting a personal computer; both the program and this manual are tightly bound to that computer platform, although porting to other platforms may be addressed in the future. One of the important features in GRUB is exibility; GRUB understands lesystems and kernel executable formats, so you can load an arbitrary operating system the way you like, without recording the physical position of your kernel on the disk. Thus you can load the kernel just by specifying its le name and the drive and partition where the kernel resides. When booting with GRUB, you can use either a command-line interface (see Section 12.1 [Command-line interface], page 22), or a menu interface (see Section 12.2 [Menu interface], page 23). Using the command-line interface, you type the drive specication and le name of the kernel manually. In the menu interface, you just select an OS using the arrow keys. The menu is based on a conguration le which you prepare beforehand (see Chapter 5 [Conguration], page 13). While in the menu, you can switch to the commandline mode, and vice-versa. You can even edit menu entries before using them. In the following chapters, you will learn how to specify a drive, a partition, and a le name (see Chapter 2 [Naming convention], page 4) to GRUB, how to install GRUB on your drive (see Chapter 3 [Installation], page 5), and how to boot your OSes (see Chapter 4 [Booting], page 9), step by step. Besides the GRUB boot loader itself, there is a grub shell grub (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42) which can be run when you are in your operating system. It emulates the boot loader and can be used for installing the boot loader.

1.2 History of GRUB

GRUB originated in 1995 when Erich Boleyn was trying to boot the GNU Hurd with the University of Utahs Mach 4 microkernel (now known as GNU Mach). Erich and Brian Ford designed the Multiboot Specication (see section Motivation in The Multiboot Specication), because they were determined not to add to the large number of mutuallyincompatible PC boot methods. Erich then began modifying the FreeBSD boot loader so that it would understand Multiboot. He soon realized that it would be a lot easier to write his own boot loader from scratch than to keep working on the FreeBSD boot loader, and so GRUB was born.
1

chain-load is the mechanism for loading unsupported operating systems by loading another boot loader. It is typically used for loading DOS or Windows.

GRUB Manual

Erich added many features to GRUB, but other priorities prevented him from keeping up with the demands of its quickly-expanding user base. In 1999, Gordon Matzigkeit and Yoshinori K. Okuji adopted GRUB as an ocial GNU package, and opened its development by making the latest sources available via anonymous CVS. See Appendix A [Obtaining and Building GRUB], page 46, for more information.

1.3 GRUB features

The primary requirement for GRUB is that it be compliant with the Multiboot Specication, which is described in section Motivation in The Multiboot Specication. The other goals, listed in approximate order of importance, are: Basic functions must be straightforward for end-users. Rich functionality to support kernel experts and designers. Backward compatibility for booting FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux. Proprietary kernels (such as DOS, Windows NT, and OS/2) are supported via a chain-loading function. Except for specic compatibility modes (chain-loading and the Linux piggyback format), all kernels will be started in much the same state as in the Multiboot Specication. Only kernels loaded at 1 megabyte or above are presently supported. Any attempt to load below that boundary will simply result in immediate failure and an error message reporting the problem. In addition to the requirements above, GRUB has the following features (note that the Multiboot Specication doesnt require all the features that GRUB supports): Recognize multiple executable formats Support many of the a.out variants plus ELF. Symbol tables are also loaded. Support non-Multiboot kernels Support many of the various free 32-bit kernels that lack Multiboot compliance (primarily FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux). Chain-loading of other boot loaders is also supported. Load multiples modules Fully support the Multiboot feature of loading multiple modules. Load a conguration le Support a human-readable text conguration le with preset boot commands. You can also load another conguration le dynamically and embed a preset conguration le in a GRUB image le. The list of commands (see Chapter 13 [Commands], page 23) are a superset of those supported on the command-line. An example conguration le is provided in Chapter 5 [Conguration], page 13. Provide a menu interface A menu interface listing preset boot commands, with a programmable timeout, is available. There is no xed limit on the number of boot entries, and the current implementation has space for several hundred.

Chapter 1: Introduction to GRUB

Have a exible command-line interface A fairly exible command-line interface, accessible from the menu, is available to edit any preset commands, or write a new boot command set from scratch. If no conguration le is present, GRUB drops to the command-line. The list of commands (see Chapter 13 [Commands], page 23) are a subset of those supported for conguration les. Editing commands closely resembles the Bash command-line (see section Command Line Editing in Bash Features), with TAB -completion of commands, devices, partitions, and les in a directory depending on context. Support multiple lesystem types Support multiple lesystem types transparently, plus a useful explicit blocklist notation. The currently supported lesystem types are BSD FFS, DOS FAT16 and FAT32, Minix fs, Linux ext2fs, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, and VSTa fs. See Chapter 11 [Filesystem], page 20, for more information. Support automatic decompression Can decompress les which were compressed by gzip. This function is both automatic and transparent to the user (i.e. all functions operate upon the uncompressed contents of the specied les). This greatly reduces a le size and loading time, a particularly great benet for oppies.2 It is conceivable that some kernel modules should be loaded in a compressed state, so a dierent module-loading command can be specied to avoid uncompressing the modules. Access data on any installed device Support reading data from any or all oppies or hard disk(s) recognized by the BIOS, independent of the setting of the root device. Be independent of drive geometry translations Unlike many other boot loaders, GRUB makes the particular drive translation irrelevant. A drive installed and running with one translation may be converted to another translation without any adverse eects or changes in GRUBs conguration. Detect all installed ram GRUB can generally nd all the installed ram on a PC-compatible machine. It uses an advanced BIOS query technique for nding all memory regions. As described on the Multiboot Specication (see section Motivation in The Multiboot Specication), not all kernels make use of this information, but GRUB provides it for those who do. Support Logical Block Address mode In traditional disk calls (called CHS mode), there is a geometry translation problem, that is, the BIOS cannot access over 1024 cylinders, so the accessible space is limited to at least 508 MB and to at most 8GB. GRUB cant universally solve this problem, as there is no standard interface used in all machines.
2

There are a few pathological cases where loading a very badly organized ELF kernel might take longer, but in practice this never happen.

GRUB Manual

However, several newer machines have the new interface, Logical Block Address (LBA) mode. GRUB automatically detects if LBA mode is available and uses it if available. In LBA mode, GRUB can access the entire disk. Support network booting GRUB is basically a disk-based boot loader but also has network support. You can load OS images from a network by using the TFTP protocol. Support remote terminals To support computers with no console, GRUB provides remote terminal support, so that you can control GRUB from a remote host. Only serial terminal support is implemented at the moment.

1.4 The role of a boot loader

The following is a quotation from Gordon Matzigkeit, a GRUB fanatic: Some people like to acknowledge both the operating system and kernel when they talk about their computers, so they might say they use GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd. Other people seem to think that the kernel is the most important part of the system, so they like to call their GNU operating systems Linux systems. I, personally, believe that this is a grave injustice, because the boot loader is the most important software of all. I used to refer to the above systems as either LILO3 or GRUB systems. Unfortunately, nobody ever understood what I was talking about; now I just use the word GNU as a pseudonym for GRUB. So, if you ever hear people talking about their alleged GNU systems, remember that they are actually paying homage to the best boot loader around. . . GRUB! We, the GRUB maintainers, do not (usually) encourage Gordons level of fanaticism, but it helps to remember that boot loaders deserve recognition. We hope that you enjoy using GNU GRUB as much as we did writing it.

2 Naming convention
The device syntax used in GRUB is a wee bit dierent from what you may have seen before in your operating system(s), and you need to know it so that you can specify a drive/partition. Look at the following examples and explanations: (fd0) First of all, GRUB requires that the device name be enclosed with ( and ). The fd part means that it is a oppy disk. The number 0 is the drive number, which is counted from zero. This expression means that GRUB will use the whole oppy disk.
3

The LInux LOader, a boot loader that everybody uses, but nobody likes.

Chapter 3: Installation

(hd0,1) Here, hd means it is a hard disk drive. The rst integer 0 indicates the drive number, that is, the rst hard disk, while the second integer, 1, indicates the partition number (or the pc slice number in the BSD terminology). Once again, please note that the partition numbers are counted from zero, not from one. This expression means the second partition of the rst hard disk drive. In this case, GRUB uses one partition of the disk, instead of the whole disk. (hd0,4) This species the rst extended partition of the rst hard disk drive. Note that the partition numbers for extended partitions are counted from 4, regardless of the actual number of primary partitions on your hard disk. (hd1,a) This means the BSD a partition of the second hard disk. If you need to specify which pc slice number should be used, use something like this: (hd1,0,a). If the pc slice number is omitted, GRUB searches for the rst pc slice which has a BSD a partition. Of course, to actually access the disks or partitions with GRUB, you need to use the device specication in a command, like root (fd0) or unhide (hd0,2). To help you nd out which number species a partition you want, the GRUB command-line (see Section 12.1 [Command-line interface], page 22) options have argument completion. This means that, for example, you only need to type root ( followed by a TAB , and GRUB will display the list of drives, partitions, or le names. So it should be quite easy to determine the name of your target partition, even with minimal knowledge of the syntax. Note that GRUB does not distinguish IDE from SCSI - it simply counts the drive numbers from zero, regardless of their type. Normally, any IDE drive number is less than any SCSI drive number, although that is not true if you change the boot sequence by swapping IDE and SCSI drives in your BIOS. Now the question is, how to specify a le? Again, consider an example: (hd0,0)/vmlinuz This species the le named vmlinuz, found on the rst partition of the rst hard disk drive. Note that the argument completion works with le names, too. That was easy, admit it. Now read the next chapter, to nd out how to actually install GRUB on your drive.

3 Installation
In order to install GRUB as your boot loader, you need to rst install the GRUB system and utilities under your UNIX-like operating system (see Appendix A [Obtaining and Building GRUB], page 46). You can do this either from the source tarball, or as a package for your OS. After you have done that, you need to install the boot loader on a drive (oppy or hard disk). There are two ways of doing that - either using the utility grub-install (see

GRUB Manual

Chapter 16 [Invoking grub-install], page 44) on a UNIX-like OS, or by running GRUB itself from a oppy. These are quite similar, however the utility might probe a wrong BIOS drive, so you should be careful. Also, if you install GRUB on a UNIX-like OS, please make sure that you have an emergency boot disk ready, so that you can rescue your computer if, by any chance, your hard drive becomes unusable (unbootable). GRUB comes with boot images, which are normally put in the directory /usr/share/grub/i386-pc. If you do not use grub-install, then you need to copy the les stage1, stage2, and *stage1_5 to the directory /boot/grub. Hereafter, the directory where GRUB images are initially placed (normally /usr/share/grub/i386-pc) will be called the image directory, and the directory where the boot loader needs to nd them (usually /boot/grub) will be called the boot directory.

3.1 Creating a GRUB boot oppy

To create a GRUB boot oppy, you need to take the les stage1 and stage2 from the image directory, and write them to the rst and the second block of the oppy disk, respectively. Caution: This procedure will destroy any data currently stored on the oppy. On a UNIX-like operating system, that is done with the following commands: # cd /usr/share/grub/i386-pc # dd if=stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out # dd if=stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1 153+1 records in 153+1 records out # The device le name may be dierent. Consult the manual for your OS.

3.2 Installing GRUB natively

Caution: Installing GRUBs stage1 in this manner will erase the normal boot-sector used by an OS. GRUB can currently boot GNU Mach, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD directly, so using it on a boot sector (the rst sector of a partition) should be okay. But generally, it would be a good idea to back up the rst sector of the partition on which you are installing GRUBs stage1. This isnt as important if you are installing GRUB on the rst sector of a hard disk, since its easy to reinitialize it (e.g. by running FDISK /MBR from DOS). If you decide to install GRUB in the native environment, which is denitely desirable, youll need to create a GRUB boot disk, and reboot your computer with it. Otherwise, see Section 3.3 [Installing GRUB using grub-install], page 7.

Chapter 3: Installation

Once started, GRUB will show the command-line interface (see Section 12.1 [Command-line interface], page 22). First, set the GRUBs root device 4 to the partition containing the boot directory, like this: grub> root (hd0,0) If you are not sure which partition actually holds this directory, use the command find (see Section 13.3.11 [nd], page 32), like this: grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 This will search for the le name /boot/grub/stage1 and show the devices which contain the le. Once youve set the root device correctly, run the command setup (see Section 13.3.34 [setup], page 37): grub> setup (hd0) This command will install the GRUB boot loader on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the rst drive. If you want to put GRUB into the boot sector of a partition instead of putting it in the MBR, specify the partition into which you want to install GRUB: grub> setup (hd0,0) If you install GRUB into a partition or a drive other than the rst one, you must chain-load GRUB from another boot loader. Refer to the manual for the boot loader to know how to chain-load GRUB. After using the setup command, you will boot into GRUB without the GRUB oppy. See the chapter Chapter 4 [Booting], page 9 to nd out how to boot your operating systems from GRUB.

3.3 Installing GRUB using grub-install

Caution: This procedure is denitely less safe, because there are several ways in which your computer can become unbootable. For example, most operating systems dont tell GRUB how to map BIOS drives to OS devices correctlyGRUB merely guesses the mapping. This will succeed in most cases, but not always. Therefore, GRUB provides you with a map le called the device map, which you must x if it is wrong. See Section 15.3 [Device map], page 44, for more details. If you still do want to install GRUB under a UNIX-like OS (such as gnu), invoke the program grub-install (see Chapter 16 [Invoking grub-install], page 44) as the superuser (root). The usage is basically very simple. You only need to specify one argument to the program, namely, where to install the boot loader. The argument can be either a device le (like /dev/hda) or a partition specied in GRUBs notation. For example, under Linux the following will install GRUB into the MBR of the rst IDE disk: # grub-install /dev/hda Likewise, under GNU/Hurd, this has the same eect: # grub-install /dev/hd0 If it is the rst BIOS drive, this is the same as well:
4

Note that GRUBs root device doesnt necessarily mean your OSs root partition; if you need to specify a root partition for your OS, add the argument into the command kernel.

GRUB Manual

# grub-install (hd0) Or you can omit the parentheses: # grub-install hd0 But all the above examples assume that GRUB should use images under the root directory. If you want GRUB to use images under a directory other than the root directory, you need to specify the option --root-directory. The typical usage is that you create a GRUB boot oppy with a lesystem. Here is an example: # # # # mke2fs /dev/fd0 mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt grub-install --root-directory=/mnt fd0 umount /mnt

Another example is when you have a separate boot partition which is mounted at /boot. Since GRUB is a boot loader, it doesnt know anything about mountpoints at all. Thus, you need to run grub-install like this: # grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/hda By the way, as noted above, it is quite dicult to guess BIOS drives correctly under a UNIX-like OS. Thus, grub-install will prompt you to check if it could really guess the correct mappings, after the installation. The format is dened in Section 15.3 [Device map], page 44. Please be quite careful. If the output is wrong, it is unlikely that your computer will be able to boot with no problem. Note that grub-install is actually just a shell script and the real task is done by the grub shell grub (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42). Therefore, you may run grub directly to install GRUB, without using grub-install. Dont do that, however, unless you are very familiar with the internals of GRUB. Installing a boot loader on a running OS may be extremely dangerous.

3.4 Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM

GRUB supports the no emulation mode in the El Torito specication5 . This means that you can use the whole CD-ROM from GRUB and you dont have to make a oppy or hard disk image le, which can cause compatibility problems. For booting from a CD-ROM, GRUB uses a special Stage 2 called stage2_eltorito. The only GRUB les you need to have in your bootable CD-ROM are this stage2_eltorito and optionally a cong le menu.lst. You dont need to use stage1 or stage2, because El Torito is quite dierent from the standard boot process. Here is an example of procedures to make a bootable CD-ROM image. First, make a top directory for the bootable image, say, iso: $ mkdir iso Make a directory for GRUB: $ mkdir -p iso/boot/grub Copy the le stage2_eltorito:
5

El Torito is a specication for bootable CD using BIOS functions.

Chapter 4: Booting

$ cp /usr/share/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub If desired, make the cong le menu.lst under iso/boot/grub (see Chapter 5 [Conguration], page 13), and copy any les and directories for the disc to the directory iso/. Finally, make a ISO9660 image le like this: $ mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot \ -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso This produces a le named grub.iso, which then can be burned into a CD (or a DVD). mkisofs has already set up the disc to boot from the boot/grub/stage2_eltorito le, so there is no need to setup GRUB on the disc. (Note that the -boot-load-size 4 bit is required for compatibility with the BIOS on many older machines.) You can use the device (cd) to access a CD-ROM in your cong le. This is not required; GRUB automatically sets the root device to (cd) when booted from a CD-ROM. It is only necessary to refer to (cd) if you want to access other drives as well.

4 Booting
GRUB can load Multiboot-compliant kernels in a consistent way, but for some free operating systems you need to use some OS-specic magic.

4.1 How to boot operating systems

GRUB has two distinct boot methods. One of the two is to load an operating system directly, and the other is to chain-load another boot loader which then will load an operating system actually. Generally speaking, the former is more desirable, because you dont need to install or maintain other boot loaders and GRUB is exible enough to load an operating system from an arbitrary disk/partition. However, the latter is sometimes required, since GRUB doesnt support all the existing operating systems natively.

4.1.1 How to boot an OS directly with GRUB

Multiboot (see section Motivation in The Multiboot Specication) is the native format supported by GRUB. For the sake of convenience, there is also support for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. If you want to boot other operating systems, you will have to chain-load them (see Section 4.1.2 [Chain-loading], page 10). Generally, GRUB can boot any Multiboot-compliant OS in the following steps: 1. Set GRUBs root device to the drive where the OS images are stored with the command root (see Section 13.3.31 [root], page 36). 2. Load the kernel image with the command kernel (see Section 13.3.20 [kernel], page 35). 3. If you need modules, load them with the command module (see Section 13.3.25 [module], page 36) or modulenounzip (see Section 13.3.26 [modulenounzip], page 36). 4. Run the command boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31). Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD can be booted in a similar manner. You load a kernel image with the command kernel and then run the command boot. If the kernel requires some parameters, just append the parameters to kernel, after the le name

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of the kernel. Also, please refer to Section 4.2 [OS-specic notes], page 10, for information on your OS-specic issues.

4.1.2 Load another boot loader to boot unsupported operating systems

If you want to boot an unsupported operating system (e.g. Windows 95), chain-load a boot loader for the operating system. Normally, the boot loader is embedded in the boot sector of the partition on which the operating system is installed. 1. Set GRUBs root device to the partition by the command rootnoverify (see Section 13.3.32 [rootnoverify], page 37): grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0) 2. Set the active ag in the partition using the command makeactive6 (see Section 13.3.22 [makeactive], page 35): grub> makeactive 3. Load the boot loader with the command chainloader (see Section 13.3.4 [chainloader], page 31): grub> chainloader +1 +1 indicates that GRUB should read one sector from the start of the partition. The complete description about this syntax can be found in Section 11.3 [Block list syntax], page 21. 4. Run the command boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31). However, DOS and Windows have some deciencies, so you might have to use more complicated instructions. See Section 4.2.6 [DOS/Windows], page 12, for more information.

4.2 Some caveats on OS-specic issues

Here, we describe some caveats on several operating systems.

4.2.1 GNU/Hurd
Since GNU/Hurd is Multiboot-compliant, it is easy to boot it; there is nothing special about it. But do not forget that you have to specify a root partition to the kernel. 1. Set GRUBs root device to the same drive as GNU/Hurds. Probably the command find /boot/gnumach or similar can help you (see Section 13.3.11 [nd], page 32). 2. Load the kernel and the module, like this: grub> kernel /boot/gnumach root=hd0s1 grub> module /boot/serverboot 3. Run the command boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31).

4.2.2 GNU/Linux
It is relatively easy to boot GNU/Linux from GRUB, because it somewhat resembles to boot a Multiboot-compliant OS.
6

This is not necessary for most of the modern operating systems.

Chapter 4: Booting

11

1. Set GRUBs root device to the same drive as GNU/Linuxs. Probably the command find /vmlinuz or similar can help you (see Section 13.3.11 [nd], page 32). 2. Load the kernel: grub> kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 If you need to specify some kernel parameters, just append them to the command. For example, to set vga to ext, do this: grub> kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 vga=ext See the documentation in the Linux source tree for complete information on the available options. 3. If you use an initrd, execute the command initrd (see Section 13.3.17 [initrd], page 33) after kernel: grub> initrd /initrd 4. Finally, run the command boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31). Caution: If you use an initrd and specify the mem= option to the kernel to let it use less than actual memory size, you will also have to specify the same memory size to GRUB. To let GRUB know the size, run the command uppermem before loading the kernel. See Section 13.3.37 [uppermem], page 38, for more information.

4.2.3 FreeBSD
GRUB can load the kernel directly, either in ELF or a.out format. But this is not recommended, since FreeBSDs bootstrap interface sometimes changes heavily, so GRUB cant guarantee to pass kernel parameters correctly. Thus, wed recommend loading the very exible loader /boot/loader instead. See this example: grub> root (hd0,a) grub> kernel /boot/loader grub> boot

4.2.4 NetBSD
GRUB can load NetBSD a.out and ELF directly, follow these steps: 1. Set GRUBs root device with root (see Section 13.3.31 [root], page 36). 2. Load the kernel with kernel (see Section 13.3.20 [kernel], page 35). You should append the ugly option --type=netbsd, if you want to load an ELF kernel, like this: grub> kernel --type=netbsd /netbsd-elf 3. Run boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31). For now, however, GRUB doesnt allow you to pass kernel parameters, so it may be better to chain-load it instead. For more information, please see Section 4.1.2 [Chainloading], page 10.

4.2.5 OpenBSD
The booting instruction is exactly the same as for NetBSD (see Section 4.2.4 [NetBSD], page 11).

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4.2.6 DOS/Windows
GRUB cannot boot DOS or Windows directly, so you must chain-load them (see Section 4.1.2 [Chain-loading], page 10). However, their boot loaders have some critical deciencies, so it may not work to just chain-load them. To overcome the problems, GRUB provides you with two helper functions. If you have installed DOS (or Windows) on a non-rst hard disk, you have to use the disk swapping technique, because that OS cannot boot from any disks but the rst one. The workaround used in GRUB is the command map (see Section 13.3.23 [map], page 35), like this: grub> map (hd0) (hd1) grub> map (hd1) (hd0) This performs a virtual swap between your rst and second hard drive. Caution: This is eective only if DOS (or Windows) uses BIOS to access the swapped disks. If that OS uses a special driver for the disks, this probably wont work. Another problem arises if you installed more than one set of DOS/Windows onto one disk, because they could be confused if there are more than one primary partitions for DOS/Windows. Certainly you should avoid doing this, but there is a solution if you do want to do so. Use the partition hiding/unhiding technique. If GRUB hides a DOS (or Windows) partition (see Section 13.2.5 [hide], page 26), DOS (or Windows) will ignore the partition. If GRUB unhides a DOS (or Windows) partition (see Section 13.2.17 [unhide], page 31), DOS (or Windows) will detect the partition. Thus, if you have installed DOS (or Windows) on the rst and the second partition of the rst hard disk, and you want to boot the copy on the rst partition, do the following: grub> grub> grub> grub> grub> grub> unhide (hd0,0) hide (hd0,1) rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 makeactive boot

4.2.7 SCO UnixWare

It is known that the signature in the boot loader for SCO UnixWare is wrong, so you will have to specify the option --force to chainloader (see Section 13.3.4 [chainloader], page 31), like this: grub> grub> grub> grub> rootnoverify (hd1,0) chainloader --force +1 makeactive boot

4.2.8 QNX
QNX seems to use a bigger boot loader, so you need to boot it up, like this: grub> rootnoverify (hd1,1) grub> chainloader +4 grub> boot

Chapter 5: Conguration

13

5 Conguration
Youve probably noticed that you need to type several commands to boot your OS. Theres a solution to that - GRUB provides a menu interface (see Section 12.2 [Menu interface], page 23) from which you can select an item (using arrow keys) that will do everything to boot an OS. To enable the menu, you need a conguration le, menu.lst under the boot directory. Well analyze an example le. The le rst contains some general settings, the menu interface related options. You can put these commands (see Section 13.1 [Menu-specic commands], page 24) before any of the items (starting with title (see Section 13.1.5 [title], page 25)). # # Sample boot menu configuration file # As you may have guessed, these lines are comments. Lines starting with a hash character (#), and blank lines, are ignored by GRUB. # By default, boot the first entry. default 0 The rst entry (here, counting starts with number zero, not one!) will be the default choice. # Boot automatically after 30 secs. timeout 30 As the comment says, GRUB will boot automatically in 30 seconds, unless interrupted with a keypress. # Fallback to the second entry. fallback 1 If, for any reason, the default entry doesnt work, fall back to the second one (this is rarely used, for obvious reasons). Note that the complete descriptions of these commands, which are menu interface specic, can be found in Section 13.1 [Menu-specic commands], page 24. Other descriptions can be found in Chapter 13 [Commands], page 23. Now, on to the actual OS denitions. You will see that each entry begins with a special command, title (see Section 13.1.5 [title], page 25), and the action is described after it. Note that there is no command boot (see Section 13.3.2 [boot], page 31) at the end of each item. That is because GRUB automatically executes boot if it loads other commands successfully. The argument for the command title is used to display a short title/description of the entry in the menu. Since title displays the argument as is, you can write basically anything there. # For booting GNU/Hurd title GNU/Hurd root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/gnumach.gz root=hd0s1 module /boot/serverboot.gz

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This boots GNU/Hurd from the rst hard disk. # For booting GNU/Linux title GNU/Linux kernel (hd1,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 This boots GNU/Linux, but from the second hard disk. # For booting Mach (getting kernel from floppy) title Utah Mach4 multiboot root (hd0,2) pause Insert the diskette now^G!! kernel (fd0)/boot/kernel root=hd0s3 module (fd0)/boot/bootstrap This boots Mach with a kernel on a oppy, but the root lesystem at hd0s3. It also contains a pause line (see Section 13.3.27 [pause], page 36), which will cause GRUB to display a prompt and delay, before actually executing the rest of the commands and booting. # For booting FreeBSD title FreeBSD root (hd0,2,a) kernel /boot/loader This item will boot FreeBSD kernel loaded from the a partition of the third pc slice of the rst hard disk. # For booting OS/2 title OS/2 root (hd0,1) makeactive # chainload OS/2 bootloader from the first sector chainloader +1 # This is similar to "chainload", but loads a specific file #chainloader /boot/chain.os2 This will boot OS/2, using a chain-loader (see Section 4.1.2 [Chain-loading], page 10). # For booting Windows NT or Windows95 title Windows NT / Windows 95 boot menu root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1 # For loading DOS if Windows NT is installed # chainload /bootsect.dos The same as the above, but for Windows. # For installing GRUB into the hard disk title Install GRUB into the hard disk root (hd0,0) setup (hd0) This will just (re)install GRUB onto the hard disk.

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# Change the colors. title Change the colors color light-green/brown blink-red/blue In the last entry, the command color is used (see Section 13.2.2 [color], page 25), to change the menu colors (try it!). This command is somewhat special, because it can be used both in the command-line and in the menu. GRUB has several such commands, see Section 13.2 [General commands], page 25. We hope that you now understand how to use the basic features of GRUB. To learn more about GRUB, see the following chapters.

6 Downloading OS images from a network

Although GRUB is a disk-based boot loader, it does provide network support. To use the network support, you need to enable at least one network driver in the GRUB build process. For more information please see netboot/README.netboot in the source distribution.

6.1 How to set up your network

GRUB requires a le server and optionally a server that will assign an IP address to the machine on which GRUB is running. For the former, only TFTP is supported at the moment. The latter is either BOOTP, DHCP or a RARP server7 . It is not necessary to run both the servers on one computer. How to congure these servers is beyond the scope of this document, so please refer to the manuals specic to those protocols/servers. If you decided to use a server to assign an IP address, set up the server and run bootp (see Section 13.2.1 [bootp], page 25), dhcp (see Section 13.2.4 [dhcp], page 26) or rarp (see Section 13.2.11 [rarp], page 27) for BOOTP, DHCP or RARP, respectively. Each command will show an assigned IP address, a netmask, an IP address for your TFTP server and a gateway. If any of the addresses is wrong or it causes an error, probably the conguration of your servers isnt set up properly. Otherwise, run ifconfig, like this: grub> ifconfig --address=192.168.110.23 --server=192.168.110.14 You can also use ifconfig in conjuction with bootp, dhcp or rarp (e.g. to reassign the server address manually). See Section 13.2.6 [ifcong], page 26, for more details. Finally, download your OS images from your network. The network can be accessed using the network drive (nd). Everything else is very similar to the normal instructions (see Chapter 4 [Booting], page 9). Here is an example:
7

RARP is not advised, since it cannot serve much information

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grub> bootp Probing... [NE*000] NE2000 base ... Address: 192.168.110.23 Server: 192.168.110.14 grub> grub> grub> grub>

Netmask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.110.1

root (nd) kernel /tftproot/gnumach.gz root=sd0s1 module /tftproot/serverboot.gz boot

6.2 Booting from a network

It is sometimes very useful to boot from a network, especially when you use a machine which has no local disk. In this case, you need to obtain a kind of Net Boot rom, such as a PXE rom or a free software package like Etherboot. Such a Boot rom rst boots the machine, sets up the network card installed into the machine, and downloads a second stage boot image from the network. Then, the second image will try to boot an operating system actually from the network. GRUB provides two second stage images, nbgrub and pxegrub (see Chapter 10 [Images], page 19). These images are the same as the normal Stage 2, except that they set up a network automatically, and try to load a conguration le from the network, if specied. The usage is very simple: If the machine has a PXE rom, use pxegrub. If the machine has an NBI loader such as Etherboot, use nbgrub. There is no dierence between them except their formats. Since the way to load a second stage image you want to use should be described in the manual on your Net Boot rom, please refer to the manual, for more information. However, there is one thing specic to GRUB. Namely, how to specify a conguration le in a BOOTP/DHCP server. For now, GRUB uses the tag 150, to get the name of a conguration le. The following is an example with a BOOTP conguration: .allhost:hd=/tmp:bf=null:\ :ds=145.71.35.1 145.71.32.1:\ :sm=255.255.254.0:\ :gw=145.71.35.1:\ :sa=145.71.35.5: foo:ht=1:ha=63655d0334a7:ip=145.71.35.127:\ :bf=/nbgrub:\ :tc=.allhost:\ :T150="(nd)/tftpboot/menu.lst.foo": Note that you should specify the drive name (nd) in the name of the conguration le. This is because you might change the root drive before downloading the conguration from the TFTP server when the preset menu feature is used (see Chapter 8 [Preset Menu], page 17). See the manual of your BOOTP/DHCP server for more information. The exact syntax should dier a little from the example.

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7 Using GRUB via a serial line

This chapter describes how to use the serial terminal support in GRUB. If you have many computers or computers with no display/keyboard, it could be very useful to control the computers through serial communications. To connect one computer with another via a serial line, you need to prepare a null-modem (cross) serial cable, and you may need to have multiport serial boards, if your computer doesnt have extra serial ports. In addition, a terminal emulator is also required, such as minicom. Refer to a manual of your operating system, for more information. As for GRUB, the instruction to set up a serial terminal is quite simple. First of all, make sure that you havent specied the option --disable-serial to the congure script when you built your GRUB images. If you get them in binary form, probably they have serial terminal support already. Then, initialize your serial terminal after GRUB starts up. Here is an example: grub> serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 grub> terminal serial The command serial initializes the serial unit 0 with the speed 9600bps. The serial unit 0 is usually called COM1, so, if you want to use COM2, you must specify --unit=1 instead. This command accepts many other options, so please refer to Section 13.2.12 [serial], page 27, for more details. The command terminal (see Section 13.2.14 [terminal], page 30) chooses which type of terminal you want to use. In the case above, the terminal will be a serial terminal, but you can also pass console to the command, as terminal serial console. In this case, a terminal in which you press any key will be selected as a GRUB terminal. However, note that GRUB assumes that your terminal emulator is compatible with VT100 by default. This is true for most terminal emulators nowadays, but you should pass the option --dumb to the command if your terminal emulator is not VT100-compatible or implements few VT100 escape sequences. If you specify this option then GRUB provides you with an alternative menu interface, because the normal menu requires several fancy features of your terminal.

8 Embedding a conguration le into GRUB

GRUB supports a preset menu which is to be always loaded before starting. The preset menu feature is useful, for example, when your computer has no console but a serial cable. In this case, it is critical to set up the serial terminal as soon as possible, since you cannot see any message until the serial terminal begins to work. So it is good to run the commands serial (see Section 13.2.12 [serial], page 27) and terminal (see Section 13.2.14 [terminal], page 30) before anything else at the start-up time. How the preset menu works is slightly complicated: 1. GRUB checks if the preset menu feature is used, and loads the preset menu, if available. This includes running commands and reading boot entries, like an ordinary conguration le.

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2. GRUB checks if the conguration le is available. Note that this check is performed regardless of the existence of the preset menu. The conguration le is loaded even if the preset menu was loaded. 3. If the preset menu includes any boot entries, they are cleared when the conguration le is loaded. It doesnt matter whether the conguration le has any entries or no entry. The boot entries in the preset menu are used only when GRUB fails in loading the conguration le. To enable the preset menu feature, you must rebuild GRUB specifying a le to the congure script with the option --enable-preset-menu. The le has the same semantics as normal conguration les (see Chapter 5 [Conguration], page 13). Another point you should take care is that the diskless support (see Section 6.2 [Diskless], page 16) diverts the preset menu. Diskless images embed a preset menu to execute the command bootp (see Section 13.2.1 [bootp], page 25) automatically, unless you specify your own preset menu to the congure script. This means that you must put commands to initialize a network in the preset menu yourself, because diskless images dont set it up implicitly, when you use the preset menu explicitly. Therefore, a typical preset menu used with diskless support would be like this: # Set up the serial terminal, first of all. serial --unit=0 --speed=19200 terminal --timeout=0 serial # Initialize the network. dhcp

9 Protecting your computer from cracking

You may be interested in how to prevent ordinary users from doing whatever they like, if you share your computer with other people. So this chapter describes how to improve the security of GRUB. One thing which could be a security hole is that the user can do too many things with GRUB, because GRUB allows one to modify its conguration and run arbitrary commands at run-time. For example, the user can even read /etc/passwd in the command-line interface by the command cat (see Section 13.3.3 [cat], page 31). So it is necessary to disable all the interactive operations. Thus, GRUB provides a password feature, so that only administrators can start the interactive operations (i.e. editing menu entries and entering the command-line interface). To use this feature, you need to run the command password in your conguration le (see Section 13.2.10 [password], page 27), like this: password --md5 PASSWORD If this is specied, GRUB disallows any interactive control, until you press the key p and enter a correct password. The option --md5 tells GRUB that PASSWORD is in MD5 format. If it is omitted, GRUB assumes the PASSWORD is in clear text. You can encrypt your password with the command md5crypt (see Section 13.3.24 [md5crypt], page 36). For example, run the grub shell (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42), and enter your password:

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grub> md5crypt Password: ********** Encrypted: $1$U$JK7xFegdxWH6VuppCUSIb. Then, cut and paste the encrypted password to your conguration le. Also, you can specify an optional argument to password. See this example: password PASSWORD /boot/grub/menu-admin.lst In this case, GRUB will load /boot/grub/menu-admin.lst as a conguration le when you enter the valid password. Another thing which may be dangerous is that any user can choose any menu entry. Usually, this wouldnt be problematic, but you might want to permit only administrators to run some of your menu entries, such as an entry for booting an insecure OS like DOS. GRUB provides the command lock (see Section 13.3.21 [lock], page 35). This command always fails until you enter the valid password, so you can use it, like this: title Boot DOS lock rootnoverify (hd0,1) makeactive chainload +1 You should insert lock right after title, because any user can execute commands in an entry until GRUB encounters lock. You can also use the command password instead of lock. In this case the boot process will ask for the password and stop if it was entered incorrectly. Since the password takes its own PASSWORD argument this is useful if you want dierent passwords for dierent entries.

10 GRUB image les

GRUB consists of several images: two essential stages, optional stages called Stage 1.5, one image for bootable CD-ROM, and two network boot images. Here is a short overview of them. See Chapter 21 [Internals], page 48, for more details. stage1 This is an essential image used for booting up GRUB. Usually, this is embedded in an MBR or the boot sector of a partition. Because a PC boot sector is 512 bytes, the size of this image is exactly 512 bytes. All stage1 must do is to load Stage 2 or Stage 1.5 from a local disk. Because of the size restriction, stage1 encodes the location of Stage 2 (or Stage 1.5) in a block list format, so it never understand any lesystem structure. stage2 This is the core image of GRUB. It does everything but booting up itself. Usually, this is put in a lesystem, but that is not required.

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e2fs_stage1_5 fat_stage1_5 ffs_stage1_5 jfs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 reiserfs_stage1_5 vstafs_stage1_5 xfs_stage1_5 These are called Stage 1.5, because they serve as a bridge between stage1 and stage2, that is to say, Stage 1.5 is loaded by Stage 1 and Stage 1.5 loads Stage 2. The dierence between stage1 and *_stage1_5 is that the former doesnt understand any lesystem while the latter understands one lesystem (e.g. e2fs_stage1_5 understands ext2fs). So you can move the Stage 2 image to another location safely, even after GRUB has been installed. While Stage 2 cannot generally be embedded in a xed area as the size is so large, Stage 1.5 can be installed into the area right after an MBR, or the boot loader area of a ReiserFS or a FFS. stage2_eltorito This is a boot image for CD-ROMs using the no emulation mode in El Torito specication. This is identical to Stage 2, except that this boots up without Stage 1 and sets up a special drive (cd). nbgrub This is a network boot image for the Network Image Proposal used by some network boot loaders, such as Etherboot. This is mostly the same as Stage 2, but it also sets up a network and loads a conguration le from the network. This is another network boot image for the Preboot Execution Environment used by several Netboot ROMs. This is identical to nbgrub, except for the format.

pxegrub

11 Filesystem syntax and semantics

GRUB uses a special syntax for specifying disk drives which can be accessed by BIOS. Because of BIOS limitations, GRUB cannot distinguish between IDE, ESDI, SCSI, or others. You must know yourself which BIOS device is equivalent to which OS device. Normally, that will be clear if you see the les in a device or use the command find (see Section 13.3.11 [nd], page 32).

11.1 How to specify devices

The device syntax is like this: (device [,part-num ][,bsd-subpart-letter ]) [] means the parameter is optional. device should be either fd or hd followed by a digit, like fd0. But you can also set device to a hexadecimal or a decimal number which is a BIOS drive number, so the following are equivalent: (hd0)

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(0x80) (128) part-num represents the partition number of device, starting from zero for primary partitions and from four for extended partitions, and bsd-subpart-letter represents the BSD disklabel subpartition, such as a or e. A shortcut for specifying BSD subpartitions is (device,bsd-subpart-letter ), in this case, GRUB searches for the rst PC partition containing a BSD disklabel, then nds the subpartition bsd-subpart-letter. Here is an example: (hd0,a) The syntax (hd0) represents using the entire disk (or the MBR when installing GRUB), while the syntax (hd0,0) represents using the rst partition of the disk (or the boot sector of the partition when installing GRUB). If you enabled the network support, the special drive, (nd), is also available. Before using the network drive, you must initialize the network. See Chapter 6 [Network], page 15, for more information. If you boot GRUB from a CD-ROM, (cd) is available. See Section 3.4 [Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM], page 8, for details.

11.2 How to specify les

There are two ways to specify les, by absolute le name and by block list. An absolute le name resembles a Unix absolute le name, using / for the directory separator (not \ as in DOS). One example is (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst. This means the le /boot/grub/menu.lst in the rst partition of the rst hard disk. If you omit the device name in an absolute le name, GRUB uses GRUBs root device implicitly. So if you set the root device to, say, (hd1,0) by the command root (see Section 13.3.31 [root], page 36), then /boot/kernel is the same as (hd1,0)/boot/kernel.

11.3 How to specify block lists

A block list is used for specifying a le that doesnt appear in the lesystem, like a chainloader. The syntax is [offset ]+length [,[offset ]+length ].... Here is an example: 0+100,200+1,300+300 This represents that GRUB should read blocks 0 through 99, block 200, and blocks 300 through 599. If you omit an oset, then GRUB assumes the oset is zero. Like the le name syntax (see Section 11.2 [File name syntax], page 21), if a blocklist does not contain a device name, then GRUB uses GRUBs root device. So (hd0,1)+1 is the same as +1 when the root device is (hd0,1).

12 GRUBs user interface

GRUB has both a simple menu interface for choosing preset entries from a conguration le, and a highly exible command-line for performing any desired combination of boot commands.

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GRUB looks for its conguration le as soon as it is loaded. If one is found, then the full menu interface is activated using whatever entries were found in the le. If you choose the command-line menu option, or if the conguration le was not found, then GRUB drops to the command-line interface.

12.1 The exible command-line interface

The command-line interface provides a prompt and after it an editable text area much like a command-line in Unix or DOS. Each command is immediately executed after it is entered8 . The commands (see Section 13.3 [Command-line and menu entry commands], page 31) are a subset of those available in the conguration le, used with exactly the same syntax. Cursor movement and editing of the text on the line can be done via a subset of the functions available in the Bash shell:
C-f PC right key

Move forward one character.

C-b PC left key C-a HOME C-e END C-d DEL C-h BS C-k C-u C-y C-p PC up key C-n PC down key

Move back one character. Move to the start of the line. Move the the end of the line. Delete the character underneath the cursor. Delete the character to the left of the cursor. Kill the text from the current cursor position to the end of the line. Kill backward from the cursor to the beginning of the line. Yank the killed text back into the buer at the cursor. Move up through the history list.

Move down through the history list. When typing commands interactively, if the cursor is within or before the rst word in the command-line, pressing the TAB key (or C-i ) will display a listing of the available commands, and if the cursor is after the rst word, the TAB will provide a completion listing of disks, partitions, and le names depending on the context. Note that to obtain a list of drives, one must open a parenthesis, as root (. Note that you cannot use the completion functionality in the TFTP lesystem. This is because TFTP doesnt support le name listing for the security.
8

However, this behavior will be changed in the future version, in a user-invisible way.

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12.2 The simple menu interface

The menu interface is quite easy to use. Its commands are both reasonably intuitive and described on screen. Basically, the menu interface provides a list of boot entries to the user to choose from. Use the arrow keys to select the entry of choice, then press RET to run it. An optional timeout is available to boot the default entry (the rst one if not set), which is aborted by pressing any key. Commands are available to enter a bare command-line by pressing c (which operates exactly like the non-cong-le version of GRUB, but allows one to return to the menu if desired by pressing ESC ) or to edit any of the boot entries by pressing e . If you protect the menu interface with a password (see Chapter 9 [Security], page 18), all you can do is choose an entry by pressing RET , or press p to enter the password.

12.3 Editing a menu entry

The menu entry editor looks much like the main menu interface, but the lines in the menu are individual commands in the selected entry instead of entry names. If an ESC is pressed in the editor, it aborts all the changes made to the conguration entry and returns to the main menu interface. When a particular line is selected, the editor places the user in a special version of the GRUB command-line to edit that line. When the user hits RET , GRUB replaces the line in question in the boot entry with the changes (unless it was aborted via ESC , in which case the changes are thrown away). If you want to add a new line to the menu entry, press current line or press O if before the current line.
o

if adding a line after the

To delete a line, hit the key d . Although GRUB unfortunately does not support undo, you can do almost the same thing by just returning to the main menu.

12.4 The hidden menu interface

When your terminal is dumb or you request GRUB to hide the menu interface explicitly with the command hiddenmenu (see Section 13.1.3 [hiddenmenu], page 24), GRUB doesnt show the menu interface (see Section 12.2 [Menu interface], page 23) and automatically boots the default entry, unless interrupted by pressing ESC . When you interrupt the timeout and your terminal is dumb, GRUB falls back to the command-line interface (see Section 12.1 [Command-line interface], page 22).

13 The list of available commands

In this chapter, we list all commands that are available in GRUB. Commands belong to dierent groups. A few can only be used in the global section of the conguration le (or menu); most of them can be entered on the command-line and can be used either anywhere in the menu or specically in the menu entries.

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13.1 The list of commands for the menu only

The semantics used in parsing the conguration le are the following: The menu-specic commands have to be used before any others. The les must be in plain-text format. # at the beginning of a line in a conguration le means it is only a comment. Options are separated by spaces. All numbers can be either decimal or hexadecimal. A hexadecimal number must be preceded by 0x, and is case-insensitive. Extra options or text at the end of the line are ignored unless otherwise specied. Unrecognized commands are added to the current entry, except before entries start, where they are ignored. These commands can only be used in the menu:

13.1.1 default
default num
[Command] Set the default entry to the entry number num. Numbering starts from 0, and the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.

You can specify saved instead of a number. In this case, the default entry is the entry saved with the command savedefault. See Section 13.3.33 [savedefault], page 37, for more information.

13.1.2 fallback
fallback num
[Command] Go into unattended boot mode: if the default boot entry has any errors, instead of waiting for the user to do something, immediately start over using the num entry (same numbering as the default command (see Section 13.1.1 [default], page 24)). This obviously wont help if the machine was rebooted by a kernel that GRUB loaded.

13.1.3 hiddenmenu
hiddenmenu
[Command] Dont display the menu. If the command is used, no menu will be displayed on the control terminal, and the default entry will be booted after the timeout expired. The user can still request the menu to be displayed by pressing ESC before the timeout expires. See also Section 12.4 [Hidden menu interface], page 23.

13.1.4 timeout
timeout sec
[Command] Set a timeout, in sec seconds, before automatically booting the default entry (normally the rst entry dened).

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13.1.5 title
title name . . .
[Command] Start a new boot entry, and set its name to the contents of the rest of the line, starting with the rst non-space character.

13.2 The list of general commands

Commands usable anywhere in the menu and in the command-line.

13.2.1 bootp
bootp [--with-configfile]
[Command] Initialize a network device via the BOOTP protocol. This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with netboot support. See also Chapter 6 [Network], page 15. If you specify --with-configfile to this command, GRUB will fetch and load a conguration le specied by your BOOTP server with the vendor tag 150.

13.2.2 color
color normal [highlight]
[Command] Change the menu colors. The color normal is used for most lines in the menu (see Section 12.2 [Menu interface], page 23), and the color highlight is used to highlight the line where the cursor points. If you omit highlight, then the inverted color of normal is used for the highlighted line. The format of a color is foreground /background . foreground and background are symbolic color names. A symbolic color name must be one of these: black blue green cyan red magenta brown light-gray These below can be specied only for the foreground. dark-gray light-blue light-green light-cyan light-red light-magenta yellow white

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But only the rst eight names can be used for background. You can prex blink- to foreground if you want a blinking foreground color. This command can be used in the conguration le and on the command line, so you may write something like this in your conguration le: # Set default colors. color light-gray/blue black/light-gray # Change the colors. title OS-BS like color magenta/blue black/magenta

13.2.3 device
device drive le
[Command] In the grub shell, specify the le le as the actual drive for a bios drive drive. You can use this command to create a disk image, and/or to x the drives guessed by GRUB when GRUB fails to determine them correctly, like this: grub> device (fd0) /floppy-image grub> device (hd0) /dev/sd0 This command can be used only in the grub shell (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42).

13.2.4 dhcp
dhcp [with-congle]
[Command] Initialize a network device via the DHCP protocol. Currently, this command is just an alias for bootp, since the two protocols are very similar. This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with netboot support. See also Chapter 6 [Network], page 15. If you specify --with-configfile to this command, GRUB will fetch and load a conguration le specied by your DHCP server with the vendor tag 150.

13.2.5 hide
hide partition
[Command] Hide the partition partition by setting the hidden bit in its partition type code. This is useful only when booting DOS or Windows and multiple primary FAT partitions exist in one disk. See also Section 4.2.6 [DOS/Windows], page 12.

13.2.6 ifcong
ifconfig [--server=server] [--gateway=gateway] [--mask=mask] [--address=address]
[Command]

Congure the IP address, the netmask, the gateway, and the server address of a network device manually. The values must be in dotted decimal format, like 192.168.11.178. The order of the options is not important. This command shows current network conguration, if no option is specied. See also Chapter 6 [Network], page 15.

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13.2.7 pager
pager [ag]
[Command] Toggle or set the state of the internal pager. If ag is on, the internal pager is enabled. If ag is off, it is disabled. If no argument is given, the state is toggled.

13.2.8 partnew
partnew part type from len
[Command] Create a new primary partition. part is a partition specication in GRUB syntax (see Chapter 2 [Naming convention], page 4); type is the partition type and must be a number in the range 0-0xff; from is the starting address and len is the length, both in sector units.

13.2.9 parttype
parttype part type
[Command] Change the type of an existing partition. part is a partition specication in GRUB syntax (see Chapter 2 [Naming convention], page 4); type is the new partition type and must be a number in the range 0-0x.

13.2.10 password
password [--md5] passwd [new-cong-le]
[Command] If used in the rst section of a menu le, disable all interactive editing control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the command lock. If the password passwd is entered, it loads the new-cong-le as a new cong le and restarts the GRUB Stage 2, if new-cong-le is specied. Otherwise, GRUB will just unlock the privileged instructions. You can also use this command in the script section, in which case it will ask for the password, before continuing. The option --md5 tells GRUB that passwd is encrypted with md5crypt (see Section 13.3.24 [md5crypt], page 36).

13.2.11 rarp
rarp
[Command] Initialize a network device via the RARP protocol. This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with netboot support. See also Chapter 6 [Network], page 15.

13.2.12 serial
serial [--unit=unit] [--port=port] [--speed=speed] [Command] [--word=word] [--parity=parity] [--stop=stop] [--device=dev]
Initialize a serial device. unit is a number in the range 0-3 specifying which serial port to use; default is 0, which corresponds to the port often called COM1. port is the I/O port where the UART is to be found; if specied it takes precedence over unit. speed is the transmission speed; default is 9600. word and stop are the number of data bits and stop bits. Data bits must be in the range 5-8 and stop bits must be 1 or 2. Default is 8 data bits and one stop bit. parity is one of no, odd, even

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and defaults to no. The option --device can only be used in the grub shell and is used to specify the tty device to be used in the host operating system (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42). The serial port is not used as a communication channel unless the terminal command is used (see Section 13.2.14 [terminal], page 30). This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with serial support. See also Chapter 7 [Serial terminal], page 17.

13.2.13 setkey
setkey [to key from key]
[Command] Change the keyboard map. The key from key is mapped to the key to key. If no argument is specied, reset key mappings. Note that this command does not exchange the keys. If you want to exchange the keys, run this command again with the arguments exchanged, like this: grub> setkey capslock control grub> setkey control capslock A key must be an alphabet letter, a digit, or one of these symbols: escape, exclam, at, numbersign, dollar, percent, caret, ampersand, asterisk, parenleft, parenright, minus, underscore, equal, plus, backspace, tab, bracketleft, braceleft, bracketright, braceright, enter, control, semicolon, colon, quote, doublequote, backquote, tilde, shift, backslash, bar, comma, less, period, greater, slash, question, alt, space, capslock, FX (X is a digit), and delete. This table describes to which character each of the symbols corresponds: exclam at ! @

numbersign # dollar percent caret $ % ^

ampersand & asterisk * parenleft ( parenright ) minus -

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underscore _ equal plus = +

bracketleft [ braceleft { bracketright ] braceright } semicolon ; colon quote :

doublequote " backquote tilde ~

backslash \ bar comma less period greater slash question ? space | , < . > /

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13.2.14 terminal
terminal [--dumb] [--no-echo] [--no-edit] [--timeout=secs] [Command] [--lines=lines] [--silent] [console] [serial] [hercules]
Select a terminal for user interaction. The terminal is assumed to be VT100compatible unless --dumb is specied. If both console and serial are specied, then GRUB will use the one where a key is entered rst or the rst when the timeout expires. If neither are specied, the current setting is reported. This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with serial support. See also Chapter 7 [Serial terminal], page 17. This may not make sense for most users, but GRUB supports Hercules console as well. Hercules console is usable like the ordinary console, and the usage is quite similar to that for serial terminals: specify hercules as the argument. The option --lines denes the number of lines in your terminal, and it is used for the internal pager function. If you dont specify this option, the number is assumed as 24. The option --silent suppresses the message to prompt you to hit any key. This might be useful if your system has no terminal device. The option --no-echo has GRUB not to echo back input characters. This implies the option --no-edit. The option --no-edit disables the BASH-like editing feature.

13.2.15 terminfo
terminfo --name=name --cursor-address=seq [--clear-screen=seq] [--enter-standout-mode=seq] [--exit-standout-mode=seq]
[Command]

Dene the capabilities of your terminal. Use this command to dene escape sequences, if it is not vt100-compatible. You may use \e for ESC and ^X for a control character. You can use the utility grub-terminfo to generate appropriate arguments to this command. See Chapter 18 [Invoking grub-terminfo], page 45. If no option is specied, the current settings are printed.

13.2.16 tftpserver
tftpserver ipaddr
[Command] Caution: This command exists only for backward compatibility. Use ifconfig (see Section 13.2.6 [ifcong], page 26) instead.

Override a TFTP server address returned by a BOOTP/DHCP/RARP server. The argument ipaddr must be in dotted decimal format, like 192.168.0.15. This command is only available if GRUB is compiled with netboot support. See also Chapter 6 [Network], page 15.

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13.2.17 unhide
unhide partition
[Command] Unhide the partition partition by clearing the hidden bit in its partition type code. This is useful only when booting DOS or Windows and multiple primary partitions exist on one disk. See also Section 4.2.6 [DOS/Windows], page 12.

13.3 The list of command-line and menu entry commands

These commands are usable in the command-line and in menu entries. If you forget a command, you can run the command help (see Section 13.3.15 [help], page 33).

13.3.1 blocklist
blocklist le
[Command] Print the block list notation of the le le. See Section 11.3 [Block list syntax], page 21.

13.3.2 boot
boot
[Command] Boot the OS or chain-loader which has been loaded. Only necessary if running the fully interactive command-line (it is implicit at the end of a menu entry).

13.3.3 cat
cat le
[Command] Display the contents of the le le. This command may be useful to remind you of your OSs root partition: grub> cat /etc/fstab

13.3.4 chainloader
chainloader [--force] le
[Command] Load le as a chain-loader. Like any other le loaded by the lesystem code, it can use the blocklist notation to grab the rst sector of the current partition with +1. If you specify the option --force, then load le forcibly, whether it has a correct signature or not. This is required when you want to load a defective boot loader, such as SCO UnixWare 7.1 (see Section 4.2.7 [SCO UnixWare], page 12).

13.3.5 cmp
cmp le1 le2
[Command] Compare the le le1 with the le le2. If they dier in size, print the sizes like this: Differ in size: 0x1234 [foo], 0x4321 [bar] If the sizes are equal but the bytes at an oset dier, then print the bytes like this: Differ at the offset 777: 0xbe [foo], 0xef [bar] If they are completely identical, nothing will be printed.

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13.3.6 congle
configfile le
Load le as a conguration le. [Command]

13.3.7 debug
debug
[Command] Toggle debug mode (by default it is o). When debug mode is on, some extra messages are printed to show disk activity. This global debug ag is mainly useful for GRUB developers when testing new code.

13.3.8 displayapm
displayapm
Display APM BIOS information. [Command]

13.3.9 displaymem
displaymem
[Command] Display what GRUB thinks the system address space map of the machine is, including all regions of physical ram installed. GRUBs upper/lower memory display uses the standard BIOS interface for the available memory in the rst megabyte, or lower memory, and a synthesized number from various BIOS interfaces of the memory starting at 1MB and going up to the rst chipset hole for upper memory (the standard PC upper memory interface is limited to reporting a maximum of 64MB).

13.3.10 embed
embed stage1 5 device
[Command] Embed the Stage 1.5 stage1 5 in the sectors after the MBR if device is a drive, or in the boot loader area if device is a FFS partition or a ReiserFS partition.9 Print the number of sectors which stage1 5 occupies, if successful. Usually, you dont need to run this command directly. See Section 13.3.34 [setup], page 37.

13.3.11 nd
find lename
[Command] Search for the le name lename in all mountable partitions and print the list of the devices which contain the le. The le name lename should be an absolute le name like /boot/grub/stage1.

13.3.12 fstest
fstest
[Command] Toggle lesystem test mode. Filesystem test mode, when turned on, prints out data corresponding to all the device reads and what values are being sent to the lowThe latter feature has not been implemented yet.

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level routines. The format is <partition-offset-sector, byte-offset, bytelength > for high-level reads inside a partition, and [disk-offset-sector ] for low-level sector requests from the disk. Filesystem test mode is turned o by any use of the install (see Section 13.3.18 [install], page 33) or testload (see Section 13.3.35 [testload], page 38) commands.

13.3.13 geometry
geometry drive [cylinder head sector [total sector]]
[Command] Print the information for the drive drive. In the grub shell, you can set the geometry of the drive arbitrarily. The number of cylinders, the number of heads, the number of sectors and the number of total sectors are set to CYLINDER, HEAD, SECTOR and TOTAL SECTOR, respectively. If you omit TOTAL SECTOR, then it will be calculated based on the C/H/S values automatically.

13.3.14 halt
halt --no-apm
[Command] The command halts the computer. If the --no-apm option is specied, no APM BIOS call is performed. Otherwise, the computer is shut down using APM.

13.3.15 help
help --all [pattern . . . ]
[Command] Display helpful information about builtin commands. If you do not specify pattern, this command shows short descriptions of most of available commands. If you specify the option --all to this command, short descriptions of rarely used commands (such as Section 13.3.35 [testload], page 38) are displayed as well. If you specify any patterns, it displays longer information about each of the commands which match those patterns.

13.3.16 impsprobe
impsprobe
[Command] Probe the Intel Multiprocessor Specication 1.1 or 1.4 conguration table and boot the various CPUs which are found into a tight loop. This command can be used only in the Stage 2, but not in the grub shell.

13.3.17 initrd
initrd le . . .
[Command] Load an initial ramdisk for a Linux format boot image and set the appropriate parameters in the Linux setup area in memory. See also Section 4.2.2 [GNU/Linux], page 10.

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13.3.18 install
install [--force-lba] [--stage2=os_stage2_file] stage1 le [d] dest dev stage2 le [addr] [p] [cong le] [real cong le]
[Command]

This command is fairly complex, and you should not use this command unless you are familiar with GRUB. Use setup (see Section 13.3.34 [setup], page 37) instead. In short, it will perform a full install presuming the Stage 2 or Stage 1.510 is in its nal install location. In slightly more detail, it will load stage1 le, validate that it is a GRUB Stage 1 of the right version number, install in it a blocklist for loading stage2 le as a Stage 2. If the option d is present, the Stage 1 will always look for the actual disk stage2 le was installed on, rather than using the booting drive. The Stage 2 will be loaded at address addr, which must be 0x8000 for a true Stage 2, and 0x2000 for a Stage 1.5. If addr is not present, GRUB will determine the address automatically. It then writes the completed Stage 1 to the rst block of the device dest dev. If the options p or cong le are present, then it reads the rst block of stage2, modies it with the values of the partition stage2 le was found on (for p) or places the string cong le into the area telling the stage2 where to look for a conguration le at boot time. Likewise, if real cong le is present and stage2 le is a Stage 1.5, then the Stage 2 cong le is patched with the conguration le name real cong le. This command preserves the DOS BPB (and for hard disks, the partition table) of the sector the Stage 1 is to be installed into. Caution: Several buggy BIOSes dont pass a booting drive properly when booting from a hard disk drive. Therefore, you will unfortunately have to specify the option d, whether your Stage2 resides at the booting drive or not, if you have such a BIOS. We know these are defective in this way: Fujitsu LifeBook 400 BIOS version 31J0103A HP Vectra XU 6/200 BIOS version GG.06.11 Caution2: A number of BIOSes dont return a correct LBA support bitmap even if they do have the support. So GRUB provides a solution to ignore the wrong bitmap, that is, the option --force-lba. Dont use this option if you know that your BIOS doesnt have LBA support. Caution3: You must specify the option --stage2 in the grub shell, if you cannot unmount the lesystem where your stage2 le resides. The argument should be the le name in your operating system.

13.3.19 ioprobe
ioprobe drive
[Command] Probe I/O ports used for the drive drive. This command will list the I/O ports on the screen. For technical information, See Chapter 21 [Internals], page 48.
Theyre loaded the same way, so we will refer to the Stage 1.5 as a Stage 2 from now on.

10

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13.3.20 kernel
kernel [--type=type] [--no-mem-option] le . . .
[Command] Attempt to load the primary boot image (Multiboot a.out or elf, Linux zImage or bzImage, FreeBSD a.out, NetBSD a.out, etc.) from le. The rest of the line is passed verbatim as the kernel command-line. Any modules must be reloaded after using this command. This command also accepts the option --type so that you can specify the kernel type of le explicitly. The argument type must be one of these: netbsd, freebsd, openbsd, linux, biglinux, and multiboot. However, you need to specify it only if you want to load a NetBSD elf kernel, because GRUB can automatically determine a kernel type in the other cases, quite safely. The option --no-mem-option is eective only for Linux. If the option is specied, GRUB doesnt pass the option mem= to the kernel. This option is implied for Linux kernels 2.4.18 and newer.

13.3.21 lock
lock
[Command] Prevent normal users from executing arbitrary menu entries. You must use the command password if you really want this command to be useful (see Section 13.2.10 [password], page 27). This command is used in a menu, as shown in this example: title This entry is too dangerous to be executed by normal users lock root (hd0,a) kernel /no-security-os See also Chapter 9 [Security], page 18.

13.3.22 makeactive
makeactive
[Command] Set the active partition on the root disk to GRUBs root device. This command is limited to primary PC partitions on a hard disk.

13.3.23 map
map to drive from drive
[Command] Map the drive from drive to the drive to drive. This is necessary when you chain-load some operating systems, such as DOS, if such an OS resides at a non-rst drive. Here is an example: grub> map (hd0) (hd1) grub> map (hd1) (hd0) The example exchanges the order between the rst hard disk and the second hard disk. See also Section 4.2.6 [DOS/Windows], page 12.

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13.3.24 md5crypt
md5crypt
[Command] Prompt to enter a password, and encrypt it in MD5 format. The encrypted password can be used with the command password (see Section 13.2.10 [password], page 27). See also Chapter 9 [Security], page 18.

13.3.25 module
module le . . .
[Command] Load a boot module le for a Multiboot format boot image (no interpretation of the le contents are made, so the user of this command must know what the kernel in question expects). The rest of the line is passed as the module command-line, like the kernel command. You must load a Multiboot kernel image before loading any module. See also Section 13.3.26 [modulenounzip], page 36.

13.3.26 modulenounzip
modulenounzip le . . .
[Command] The same as module (see Section 13.3.25 [module], page 36), except that automatic decompression is disabled.

13.3.27 pause
pause message . . .
[Command] Print the message, then wait until a key is pressed. Note that placing ^G (ASCII code 7) in the message will cause the speaker to emit the standard beep sound, which is useful when prompting the user to change oppies.

13.3.28 quit
quit
[Command] Exit from the grub shell grub (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42). This command can be used only in the grub shell.

13.3.29 reboot
reboot
Reboot the computer. [Command]

13.3.30 read
read addr
[Command] Read a 32-bit value from memory at address addr and display it in hex format.

13.3.31 root
root device [hdbias]
[Command] Set the current root device to the device device, then attempt to mount it to get the partition size (for passing the partition descriptor in ES:ESI, used by some chainloaded boot loaders), the BSD drive-type (for booting BSD kernels using their native

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boot format), and correctly determine the PC partition where a BSD sub-partition is located. The optional hdbias parameter is a number to tell a BSD kernel how many BIOS drive numbers are on controllers before the current one. For example, if there is an IDE disk and a SCSI disk, and your FreeBSD root partition is on the SCSI disk, then use a 1 for hdbias. See also Section 13.3.32 [rootnoverify], page 37.

13.3.32 rootnoverify
rootnoverify device [hdbias]
[Command] Similar to root (see Section 13.3.31 [root], page 36), but dont attempt to mount the partition. This is useful for when an OS is outside of the area of the disk that GRUB can read, but setting the correct root device is still desired. Note that the items mentioned in root above which derived from attempting the mount will not work correctly.

13.3.33 savedefault
savedefault
Save the current menu entry as a default entry. Here is an example: default saved timeout 10 title GNU/Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 vga=ext initrd /boot/initrd savedefault title FreeBSD root (hd0,a) kernel /boot/loader savedefault With this conguration, GRUB will choose the entry booted previously as the default entry. See also Section 13.1.1 [default], page 24. [Command]

13.3.34 setup
setup [--force-lba] [--stage2=os_stage2_file] [--prefix=dir] install device [image device]
[Command]

Set up the installation of GRUB automatically. This command uses the more exible command install (see Section 13.3.18 [install], page 33) in the backend and installs GRUB into the device install device. If image device is specied, then nd the GRUB images (see Chapter 10 [Images], page 19) in the device image device, otherwise use the current root device, which can be set by the command root. If install device is a hard disk, then embed a Stage 1.5 in the disk if possible. The option --prefix species the directory under which GRUB images are put. If it is not specied, GRUB automatically searches them in /boot/grub and /grub.

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The options --force-lba and --stage2 are just passed to install if specied. See Section 13.3.18 [install], page 33, for more information.

13.3.35 testload
testload le
[Command] Read the entire contents of le in several dierent ways and compare them, to test the lesystem code. The output is somewhat cryptic, but if no errors are reported and the nal i=X, filepos=Y reading has X and Y equal, then it is denitely consistent, and very likely works correctly subject to a consistent oset error. If this test succeeds, then a good next step is to try loading a kernel.

13.3.36 testvbe
testvbe mode
[Command] Test the VESA BIOS EXTENSION mode mode. This command will switch your video card to the graphics mode, and show an endless animation. Hit any key to return. See also Section 13.3.38 [vbeprobe], page 38.

13.3.37 uppermem
uppermem kbytes
[Command] Force GRUB to assume that only kbytes kilobytes of upper memory are installed. Any system address range maps are discarded. Caution: This should be used with great caution, and should only be necessary on some old machines. GRUBs BIOS probe can pick up all ram on all new machines the author has ever heard of. It can also be used for debugging purposes to lie to an OS.

13.3.38 vbeprobe
vbeprobe [mode]
[Command] Probe VESA BIOS EXTENSION information. If the mode mode is specied, show only the information about mode. Otherwise, this command lists up available VBE modes on the screen. See also Section 13.3.36 [testvbe], page 38.

14 Error messages reported by GRUB

This chapter describes error messages reported by GRUB when you encounter trouble. See Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42, if your problem is specic to the grub shell.

14.1 Errors reported by the Stage 1

The general way that the Stage 1 handles errors is to print an error string and then halt. Pressing CTRL - ALT - DEL will reboot. The following is a comprehensive list of error messages for the Stage 1:

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Hard Disk Error The stage2 or stage1.5 is being read from a hard disk, and the attempt to determine the size and geometry of the hard disk failed. Floppy Error The stage2 or stage1.5 is being read from a oppy disk, and the attempt to determine the size and geometry of the oppy disk failed. Its listed as a separate error since the probe sequence is dierent than for hard disks. Read Error A disk read error happened while trying to read the stage2 or stage1.5. Geom Error The location of the stage2 or stage1.5 is not in the portion of the disk supported directly by the BIOS read calls. This could occur because the BIOS translated geometry has been changed by the user or the disk is moved to another machine or controller after installation, or GRUB was not installed using itself (if it was, the Stage 2 version of this error would have been seen during that process and it would not have completed the install).

14.2 Errors reported by the Stage 1.5

The general way that the Stage 1.5 handles errors is to print an error number in the form Error num and then halt. Pressing CTRL - ALT - DEL will reboot. The error numbers correspond to the errors reported by Stage 2. See Section 14.3 [Stage2 errors], page 39.

14.3 Errors reported by the Stage 2

The general way that the Stage 2 handles errors is to abort the operation in question, print an error string, then (if possible) either continue based on the fact that an error occurred or wait for the user to deal with the error. The following is a comprehensive list of error messages for the Stage 2 (error numbers for the Stage 1.5 are listed before the colon in each description): 1 : Filename must be either an absolute lename or blocklist This error is returned if a le name is requested which doesnt t the syntax/rules listed in the Chapter 11 [Filesystem], page 20. 2 : Bad le or directory type This error is returned if a le requested is not a regular le, but something like a symbolic link, directory, or FIFO. 3 : Bad or corrupt data while decompressing le This error is returned if the run-length decompression code gets an internal error. This is usually from a corrupt le. 4 : Bad or incompatible header in compressed le This error is returned if the le header for a supposedly compressed le is bad. 5 : Partition table invalid or corrupt This error is returned if the sanity checks on the integrity of the partition table fail. This is a bad sign.

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6 : Mismatched or corrupt version of stage1/stage2 This error is returned if the install command points to incompatible or corrupt versions of the stage1 or stage2. It cant detect corruption in general, but this is a sanity check on the version numbers, which should be correct. 7 : Loading below 1MB is not supported This error is returned if the lowest address in a kernel is below the 1MB boundary. The Linux zImage format is a special case and can be handled since it has a xed loading address and maximum size. 8 : Kernel must be loaded before booting This error is returned if GRUB is told to execute the boot sequence without having a kernel to start. 9 : Unknown boot failure This error is returned if the boot attempt did not succeed for reasons which are unknown. 10 : Unsupported Multiboot features requested This error is returned when the Multiboot features word in the Multiboot header requires a feature that is not recognized. The point of this is that the kernel requires special handling which GRUB is probably unable to provide. 11 : Unrecognized device string This error is returned if a device string was expected, and the string encountered didnt t the syntax/rules listed in the Chapter 11 [Filesystem], page 20. 12 : Invalid device requested This error is returned if a device string is recognizable but does not fall under the other device errors. 13 : Invalid or unsupported executable format This error is returned if the kernel image being loaded is not recognized as Multiboot or one of the supported native formats (Linux zImage or bzImage, FreeBSD, or NetBSD). 14 : Filesystem compatibility error, cannot read whole le Some of the lesystem reading code in GRUB has limits on the length of the les it can read. This error is returned when the user runs into such a limit. 15 : File not found This error is returned if the specied le name cannot be found, but everything else (like the disk/partition info) is OK. 16 : Inconsistent lesystem structure This error is returned by the lesystem code to denote an internal error caused by the sanity checks of the lesystem structure on disk not matching what it expects. This is usually caused by a corrupt lesystem or bugs in the code handling it in GRUB. 17 : Cannot mount selected partition This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the lesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB.

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18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general). 19 : Linux kernel must be loaded before initrd This error is returned if the initrd command is used before loading a Linux kernel. 20 : Multiboot kernel must be loaded before modules This error is returned if the module load command is used before loading a Multiboot kernel. It only makes sense in this case anyway, as GRUB has no idea how to communicate the presence of such modules to a non-Multibootaware kernel. 21 : Selected disk does not exist This error is returned if the device part of a device- or full le name refers to a disk or BIOS device that is not present or not recognized by the BIOS in the system. 22 : No such partition This error is returned if a partition is requested in the device part of a deviceor full le name which isnt on the selected disk. 23 : Error while parsing number This error is returned if GRUB was expecting to read a number and encountered bad data. 24 : Attempt to access block outside partition This error is returned if a linear block address is outside of the disk partition. This generally happens because of a corrupt lesystem on the disk or a bug in the code handling it in GRUB (its a great debugging tool). 25 : Disk read error This error is returned if there is a disk read error when trying to probe or read data from a particular disk. 26 : Too many symbolic links This error is returned if the link count is beyond the maximum (currently 5), possibly the symbolic links are looped. 27 : Unrecognized command This error is returned if an unrecognized command is entered on the commandline or in a boot sequence section of a conguration le and that entry is selected. 28 : Selected item cannot t into memory This error is returned if a kernel, module, or raw le load command is either trying to load its data such that it wont t into memory or it is simply too big. 29 : Disk write error This error is returned if there is a disk write error when trying to write to a particular disk. This would generally only occur during an install of set active partition command.

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30 : Invalid argument This error is returned if an argument specied to a command is invalid. 31 : File is not sector aligned This error may occur only when you access a ReiserFS partition by block-lists (e.g. the command install). In this case, you should mount the partition with the -o notail option. 32 : Must be authenticated This error is returned if you try to run a locked entry. You should enter a correct password before running such an entry. 33 : Serial device not congured This error is returned if you try to change your terminal to a serial one before initializing any serial device. 34 : No spare sectors on the disk This error is returned if a disk doesnt have enough spare space. This happens when you try to embed Stage 1.5 into the unused sectors after the MBR, but the rst partition starts right after the MBR or they are used by EZ-BIOS.

15 Invoking the grub shell

This chapter documents the grub shell grub. Note that the grub shell is an emulator; it doesnt run under the native environment, so it sometimes does something wrong. Therefore, you shouldnt trust it too much. If there is anything wrong with it, dont hesitate to try the native GRUB environment, especially when it guesses a wrong map between BIOS drives and OS devices.

15.1 Introduction into the grub shell

You can use the command grub for installing GRUB under your operating systems and for a testbed when you add a new feature into GRUB or when xing a bug. grub is almost the same as the Stage 2, and, in fact, it shares the source code with the Stage 2 and you can use the same commands (see Chapter 13 [Commands], page 23) in grub. It is emulated by replacing BIOS calls with UNIX system calls and libc functions. The command grub accepts the following options: --help Print a summary of the command-line options and exit. --version Print the version number of GRUB and exit. --verbose Print some verbose messages for debugging purpose. --device-map=file Use the device map le le. The format is described in Section 15.3 [Device map], page 44. --no-floppy Do not probe any oppy drive. This option has no eect if the option --device-map is specied (see Section 15.3 [Device map], page 44).

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--probe-second-floppy Probe the second oppy drive. If this option is not specied, the grub shell does not probe it, as that sometimes takes a long time. If you specify the device map le (see Section 15.3 [Device map], page 44), the grub shell just ignores this option. --config-file=file Read the conguration le le instead of /boot/grub/menu.lst. The format is the same as the normal GRUB syntax. See Chapter 11 [Filesystem], page 20, for more information. --boot-drive=drive Set the stage2 boot drive to drive. This argument should be an integer (decimal, octal or hexadecimal). --install-partition=par Set the stage2 install partition to par. This argument should be an integer (decimal, octal or hexadecimal). --no-config-file Do not use the conguration le even if it can be read. --no-curses Do not use the screen handling interface by the curses even if it is available. --batch This option has the same meaning as --no-config-file --no-curses. --read-only Disable writing to any disk. --hold Wait until a debugger will attach. This option is useful when you want to debug the startup code.

15.2 How to install GRUB via grub

The installation procedure is the same as under the native Stage 2. See Chapter 3 [Installation], page 5, for more information. The command grub-specic information is described here. What you should be careful about is buer cache. grub makes use of raw devices instead of lesystems that your operating systems serve, so there exists a potential problem that some cache inconsistency may corrupt your lesystems. What we recommend is: If you can unmount drives to which GRUB may write any amount of data, unmount them before running grub. If a drive cannot be unmounted but can be mounted with the read-only ag, mount it in read-only mode. That should be secure. If a drive must be mounted with the read-write ag, make sure that no activity is being done on it while the command grub is running. Reboot your operating system as soon as possible. This is probably not required if you follow the rules above, but reboot is the most secure way. In addition, enter the command quit when you nish the installation. That is very important because quit makes the buer cache consistent. Do not push C-c .

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If you want to install GRUB non-interactively, specify --batch option in the command-line. This is a simple example: #!/bin/sh # Use /usr/sbin/grub if you are on an older system. /sbin/grub --batch <<EOT 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null root (hd0,0) setup (hd0) quit EOT

15.3 The map between BIOS drives and OS devices

When you specify the option --device-map (see Section 15.1 [Basic usage], page 42), the grub shell creates the device map le automatically unless it already exists. The le name /boot/grub/device.map is preferred. If the device map le exists, the grub shell reads it to map BIOS drives to OS devices. This le consists of lines like this: device file device is a drive specied in the GRUB syntax (see Section 11.1 [Device syntax], page 20), and le is an OS le, which is normally a device le. The reason why the grub shell gives you the device map le is that it cannot guess the map between BIOS drives and OS devices correctly in some environments. For example, if you exchange the boot sequence between IDE and SCSI in your BIOS, it gets the order wrong. Thus, edit the le if the grub shell makes a mistake. You can put any comments in the le if needed, as the grub shell assumes that a line is just a comment if the rst character is #.

16 Invoking grub-install
The program grub-install installs GRUB on your drive using the grub shell (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42). You must specify the device name on which you want to install GRUB, like this: grub-install install_device The device name install device is an OS device name or a GRUB device name. grub-install accepts the following options: --help Print a summary of the command-line options and exit. --version Print the version number of GRUB and exit. --force-lba Force GRUB to use LBA mode even for a buggy BIOS. Use this option only if your BIOS doesnt work properly in LBA mode even though it supports LBA mode.

Chapter 19: Invoking mbchk

45

--root-directory=dir Install GRUB images under the directory dir instead of the root directory. This option is useful when you want to install GRUB into a separate partition or a removable disk. Here is an example in which you have a separate boot partition which is mounted on /boot: grub-install --root-directory=/boot hd0 --grub-shell=file Use le as the grub shell. You can append arbitrary options to le after the le name, like this: grub-install --grub-shell="grub --read-only" /dev/fd0 --recheck Recheck the device map, even if /boot/grub/device.map already exists. You should use this option whenever you add/remove a disk into/from your computer.

17 Invoking grub-md5-crypt
The program grub-md5-crypt encrypts a password in MD5 format. This is just a frontend of the grub shell (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42). Passwords encrypted by this program can be used with the command password (see Section 13.2.10 [password], page 27). grub-md5-crypt accepts the following options: --help Print a summary of the command-line options and exit.

--version Print the version information and exit. --grub-shell=file Use le as the grub shell.

18 Invoking grub-terminfo
The program grub-terminfo generates a terminfo command from a terminfo name (see Section 13.2.15 [terminfo], page 30). The result can be used in the conguration le, to dene escape sequences. Because GRUB assumes that your terminal is vt100-compatible by default, this would be useful only if your terminal is uncommon (such as vt52). grub-terminfo accepts the following options: --help Print a summary of the command-line options and exit.

--version Print the version information and exit. You must specify one argument to this command. For example: grub-terminfo vt52

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19 Invoking mbchk
The program mbchk checks for the format of a Multiboot kernel. We recommend using this program before booting your own kernel by GRUB. mbchk accepts the following options: --help Print a summary of the command-line options and exit.

--version Print the version number of GRUB and exit. --quiet Suppress all normal output.

Appendix A How to obtain and build GRUB

Caution: GRUB requires binutils-2.9.1.0.23 or later because the GNU assembler has been changed so that it can produce real 16bits machine code between 2.9.1 and 2.9.1.0.x. See http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/, to obtain information on how to get the latest version. GRUB is available from the GNU alpha archive site ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub or any of its mirrors. The le will be named grub-version.tar.gz. The current version is 0.95, so the le you should grab is: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-0.95.tar.gz To unbundle GRUB use the instruction: zcat grub-0.95.tar.gz | tar xvf which will create a directory called grub-0.95 with all the sources. You can look at the le INSTALL for detailed instructions on how to build and install GRUB, but you should be able to just do: cd grub-0.95 ./configure make install This will install the grub shell grub (see Chapter 15 [Invoking the grub shell], page 42), the Multiboot checker mbchk (see Chapter 19 [Invoking mbchk], page 46), and the GRUB images. This will also install the GRUB manual. Also, the latest version is available from the CVS. See http://savannah.gnu.org/cvs/?group=grub for more information.

Chapter 20: Where GRUB will go

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Appendix B Reporting bugs

These are the guideline for how to report bugs. Take a look at this list below before you submit bugs: 1. Before getting unsettled, read this manual through and through. Also, see the GNU GRUB FAQ. 2. Always mention the information on your GRUB. The version number and the conguration are quite important. If you build it yourself, write the options specied to the congure script and your operating system, including the versions of gcc and binutils. 3. If you have trouble with the installation, inform us of how you installed GRUB. Dont omit error messages, if any. Just GRUB hangs up when it boots is not enough. The information on your hardware is also essential. These are especially important: the geometries and the partition tables of your hard disk drives and your BIOS. 4. If GRUB cannot boot your operating system, write down everything you see on the screen. Dont paraphrase them, like The foo OS crashes with GRUB, even though it can boot with the bar boot loader just fine. Mention the commands you executed, the messages printed by them, and information on your operating system including the version number. 5. Explain what you wanted to do. It is very useful to know your purpose and your wish, and how GRUB didnt satisfy you. 6. If you can investigate the problem yourself, please do. That will give you and us much more information on the problem. Attaching a patch is even better. When you attach a patch, make the patch in unied di format, and write ChangeLog entries. But, even when you make a patch, dont forget to explain the problem, so that we can understand what your patch is for. 7. Write down anything that you think might be related. Please understand that we often need to reproduce the same problem you encounterred in our environment. So your information should be sucient for us to do the same thingDont forget that we cannot see your computer directly. If you are not sure whether to state a fact or leave it out, state it! Reporting too many things is much better than omitting something important. If you follow the guideline above, submit a report to the Bug Tracking System. Alternatively, you can submit a report via electronic mail to [email protected], but we strongly recommend that you use the Bug Tracking System, because e-mail can be passed over easily. Once we get your report, we will try to x the bugs.

20 Where GRUB will go

Here are some ideas of what might happen in the future: Support dynamic loading. Add real memory management. Add a real scripting language.

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Support internationalization. Support other architectures than i386-pc. See the le TODO in the source distribution, for more information.

21 Hacking GRUB
This chapter documents the user-invisible aspect of GRUB. As a general rule of software development, it is impossible to keep the descriptions of the internals up-to-date, and it is quite hard to document everything. So refer to the source code, whenever you are not satised with this documentation. Please assume that this gives just hints to you.

21.1 The memory map of various components

GRUB consists of two distinct components, called stages, which are loaded at dierent times in the boot process. Because they run mutual-exclusively, sometimes a memory area overlaps with another memory area. And, even in one stage, a single memory area can be used for various purposes, because their usages are mutually exclusive. Here is the memory map of the various components: 0 to 4K-1 BIOS and real mode interrupts

0x07BE to 0x07FF Partition table passed to another boot loader down from 8K-1 Real mode stack 0x2000 to ? The optional Stage 1.5 is loaded here 0x2000 to 0x7FFF Command-line buer for Multiboot kernels and modules 0x7C00 to 0x7DFF Stage 1 is loaded here by BIOS or another boot loader 0x7F00 to 0x7F42 LBA drive parameters 0x8000 to ? Stage2 is loaded here The end of Stage 2 to 416K-1 Heap, in particular used for the menu down from 416K-1 Protected mode stack 416K to 448K-1 Filesystem buer

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49

448K to 479.5K-1 Raw device buer 479.5K to 480K-1 512-byte scratch area 480K to 512K-1 Buers for various functions, such as password, command-line, cut and paste, and completion. The last 1K of lower memory Disk swapping code and data See the le stage2/shared.h, for more information.

21.2 Embedded variables in GRUB

Stage 1 and Stage 2 have embedded variables whose locations are well-dened, so that the installation can patch the binary le directly without recompilation of the stages. In Stage 1, these are dened: 0x3E 0x40 0x41 0x42 0x44 0x48 0x1FE The version number (not GRUBs, but the installation mechanisms). The boot drive. If it is 0xFF, use a drive passed by BIOS. The ag for if forcing LBA. The starting address of Stage 2. The rst sector of Stage 2. The starting segment of Stage 2. The signature (0xAA55).

See the le stage1/stage1.S, for more information. In the rst sector of Stage 1.5 and Stage 2, the block lists are recorded between firstlist and lastlist. The address of lastlist is determined when assembling the le stage2/start.S. The trick here is that it is actually read backward, and the rst 8-byte block list is not read here, but after the pointer is decremented 8 bytes, then after reading it, it decrements again, reads, and so on, until it is nished. The terminating condition is when the number of sectors to be read in the next block list is zero. The format of a block list can be seen from the example in the code just before the firstlist label. Note that it is always from the beginning of the disk, but not relative to the partition boundaries. In the second sector of Stage 1.5 and Stage 2, these are dened: 0x6 0x8 0xC 0x10 The version number (likewise, the installation mechanisms). The installed partition. The saved entry number. The identier.

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0x11 0x12

The ag for if forcing LBA. The version string (GRUBs).

0x12 + the length of the version string The name of a conguration le. See the le stage2/asm.S, for more information.

21.3 The generic interface for lesystems

For any particular partition, it is presumed that only one of the normal lesystems such as FAT, FFS, or ext2fs can be used, so there is a switch table managed by the functions in disk_io.c. The notation is that you can only mount one at a time. The block list lesystem has a special place in the system. In addition to the normal lesystem (or even without one mounted), you can access disk blocks directly (in the indicated partition) via the block list notation. Using the block list lesystem doesnt eect any other lesystem mounts. The variables which can be read by the lesystem backend are: current_drive The current BIOS drive number (numbered from 0, if a oppy, and numbered from 0x80, if a hard disk). current_partition The current partition number. current_slice The current partition type. saved_drive The drive part of the root device. saved_partition The partition part of the root device. part_start The current partition starting address, in sectors. part_length The current partition length, in sectors. print_possibilities True when the dir function should print the possible completions of a le, and false when it should try to actually open a le of that name. FSYS_BUF Filesystem buer which is 32K in size, to use in any way which the lesystem backend desires.

The variables which need to be written by a lesystem backend are: filepos The current position in the le, in sectors. Caution: the value of lepos can be changed out from under the lesystem code in the current implementation. Dont depend on it being the same for later calls into the backend code!

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filemax

The length of the le.

disk_read_func The value of disk read hook only during reading of data for the le, not any other fs data, inodes, FAT tables, whatever, then set to NULL at all other times (it will be NULL by default). If this isnt done correctly, then the testload and install commands wont work correctly. The functions expected to be used by the lesystem backend are: devread grub_read If the backend uses the block list code, then grub_read can be used, after setting block le to 1. print_a_completion If print possibilities is true, call print_a_completion for each possible le name. Otherwise, the le name completion wont work. The functions expected to be dened by the lesystem backend are described at least moderately in the le filesys.h. Their usage is fairly evident from their use in the functions in disk_io.c, look for the use of the fsys table array. Caution: The semantics are such that then mounting the lesystem, presume the lesystem buer FSYS_BUF is corrupted, and (re-)load all important contents. When opening and reading a le, presume that the data from the mount is available, and doesnt get corrupted by the open/read (i.e. multiple opens and/or reads will be done with only one mount if in the same lesystem). Only read sectors from within a partition. Sector 0 is the rst sector in the partition.

21.4 The generic interface for built-ins

GRUB built-in commands are dened in a uniformal interface, whether they are menuspecic or can be used anywhere. The denition of a builtin command consists of two parts: the code itself and the table of the information. The code must be a function which takes two arguments, a command-line string and ags, and returns an int value. The ags argument species how the function is called, using a bit mask. The return value must be zero if successful, otherwise non-zero. So it is normally enough to return errnum. The table of the information is represented by the structure struct builtin, which contains the name of the command, a pointer to the function, ags, a short description of the command and a long description of the command. Since the descriptions are used only for help messages interactively, you dont have to dene them, if the command may not be called interactively (such as title). The table is nally registered in the table builtin table, so that run_script and enter_cmdline can nd the command. See the les cmdline.c and builtins.c, for more details.

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21.5 The bootstrap mechanism used in GRUB

The disk space can be used in a boot loader is very restricted because a MBR (see Section 21.9 [MBR], page 53) is only 512 bytes but it also contains a partition table (see Section 21.10 [Partition table], page 53) and a BPB. So the question is how to make a boot loader code enough small to be t in a MBR. However, GRUB is a very large program, so we break GRUB into 2 (or 3) distinct components, Stage 1 and Stage 2 (and optionally Stage 1.5). See Section 21.1 [Memory map], page 48, for more information. We embed Stage 1 in a MBR or in the boot sector of a partition, and place Stage 2 in a lesystem. The optional Stage 1.5 can be installed in a lesystem, in the boot loader area in a FFS or a ReiserFS, and in the sectors right after a MBR, because Stage 1.5 is enough small and the sectors right after a MBR is normally an unused region. The size of this region is the number of sectors per head minus 1. Thus, all Stage1 must do is just load Stage2 or Stage1.5. But even if Stage 1 needs not to support the user interface or the lesystem interface, it is impossible to make Stage 1 less than 400 bytes, because GRUB should support both the CHS mode and the LBA mode (see Section 21.8 [Low-level disk I/O], page 52). The solution used by GRUB is that Stage 1 loads only the rst sector of Stage 2 (or Stage 1.5) and Stage 2 itself loads the rest. The ow of Stage 1 is: 1. Initialize the system briey. 2. Detect the geometry and the accessing mode of the loading drive. 3. Load the rst sector of Stage 2. 4. Jump to the starting address of the Stage 2. The ow of Stage 2 (and Stage 1.5) is: 1. Load the rest of itself to the real starting address, that is, the starting address plus 512 bytes. The block lists are stored in the last part of the rst sector. 2. Long jump to the real starting address. Note that Stage 2 (or Stage 1.5) does not probe the geometry or the accessing mode of the loading drive, since Stage 1 has already probed them.

21.6 How to probe I/O ports used by INT 13H

FIXME: I will write this chapter after implementing the new technique.

21.7 How to detect all installed RAM

FIXME: I doubt if Erich didnt write this chapter only himself wholly, so I will rewrite this chapter.

21.8 INT 13H disk I/O interrupts

FIXME: Im not sure where some part of the original chapter is derived, so I will rewrite this chapter.

Chapter 21: Index

53

21.9 The structure of Master Boot Record

FIXME: Likewise.

21.10 The format of partition tables

FIXME: Probably the original chapter is derived from "How It Works", so I will rewrite this chapter.

21.11 Where and how you should send patches

When you write patches for GRUB, please send them to the mailing list [email protected]. Here is the list of items of which you should take care: Please make your patch as small as possible. Generally, it is not a good thing to make one big patch which changes many things. Instead, segregate features and produce many patches. Use as late code as possible, for the original code. The CVS repository always has the current version (see Appendix A [Obtaining and Building GRUB], page 46). Write ChangeLog entries. See section Change Logs in GNU Coding Standards, if you dont know how to write ChangeLog. Make patches in unied di format. diff -urN is appropriate in most cases. Dont make patches reversely. Reverse patches are dicult to read and use. Be careful enough of the license term and the copyright. Because GRUB is under GNU General Public License, you may not steal code from software whose license is incompatible against GPL. And, if you copy code written by others, you must not ignore their copyrights. Feel free to ask GRUB maintainers, whenever you are not sure what you should do. If your patch is too large to send in e-mail, put it at somewhere we can see. Usually, you shouldnt send e-mail over 20K.

Index
B
blocklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 bootp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

D
debug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . devread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dhcp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . disk_read_func . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . displayapm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . displaymem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 24 26 51 26 51 32 32

C
cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . chainloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cmp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . configfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . current_drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . current_partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . current_slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 31 31 25 32 50 50 50

E
embed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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fallback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . filemax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . filepos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . find . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fstest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FSYS_BUF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24 51 50 32 32 50

password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . print_a_completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . print_possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27 36 51 50

G
geometry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 grub_read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Q
quit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

R H
halt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hiddenmenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 33 24 26 rarp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . reboot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rootnoverify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 36 36 36 37

I
ifconfig. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . impsprobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . initrd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ioprobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 33 33 34 34

S
saved_drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . saved_partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . savedefault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . serial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . setkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 50 37 27 28 37

K
kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

L
lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

T
terminal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . terminfo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . testload. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . testvbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tftpserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 30 38 38 30 24 25

M
makeactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . md5crypt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . modulenounzip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 35 36 36 36

U
unhide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 uppermem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

P
pager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . part_length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . part_start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . partnew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . parttype. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 50 50 27 27

V
vbeprobe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Table of Contents
1 Introduction to GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History of GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GRUB features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The role of a boot loader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 2 4

2 3

Naming convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Creating a GRUB boot oppy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing GRUB natively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing GRUB using grub-install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6 7 8

Booting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1 How to boot operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1.1 How to boot an OS directly with GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1.2 Load another boot loader to boot unsupported operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2 Some caveats on OS-specic issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2.1 GNU/Hurd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2.2 GNU/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2.3 FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.4 NetBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.5 OpenBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.6 DOS/Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.2.7 SCO UnixWare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.2.8 QNX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5 6

Conguration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Downloading OS images from a network . . . 15

6.1 6.2 How to set up your network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Booting from a network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

7 8

Using GRUB via a serial line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Embedding a conguration le into GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

ii

GRUB Manual

9 10 11

Protecting your computer from cracking . . . 18 GRUB image les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Filesystem syntax and semantics . . . . . . . . . . 20
11.1 11.2 11.3 How to specify devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 How to specify les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 How to specify block lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

12

GRUBs user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 The exible command-line interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The simple menu interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editing a menu entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The hidden menu interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 23 23 23

13

The list of available commands . . . . . . . . . . . 23

13.1 The list of commands for the menu only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.1 default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.2 fallback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.3 hiddenmenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.4 timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.5 title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 The list of general commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.1 bootp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.2 color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.3 device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.4 dhcp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.5 hide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.6 ifcong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.7 pager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.8 partnew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.9 parttype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.10 password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.11 rarp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.12 serial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.13 setkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.14 terminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.15 terminfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.16 tftpserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.17 unhide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 The list of command-line and menu entry commands . . . . . . . 13.3.1 blocklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.2 boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.3 cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.4 chainloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.5 cmp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.6 congle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 24 24 24 24 25 25 25 25 26 26 26 26 27 27 27 27 27 27 28 30 30 30 31 31 31 31 31 31 31 32

iii 13.3.7 debug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.8 displayapm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.9 displaymem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.10 embed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.11 nd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.12 fstest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.13 geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.14 halt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.15 help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.16 impsprobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.17 initrd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.18 install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.19 ioprobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.20 kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.21 lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.22 makeactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.23 map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.24 md5crypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.25 module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.26 modulenounzip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.27 pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.28 quit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.29 reboot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.30 read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.31 root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.32 rootnoverify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.33 savedefault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.34 setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.35 testload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.36 testvbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.37 uppermem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3.38 vbeprobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 32 32 32 32 32 33 33 33 33 33 33 34 35 35 35 35 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 36 37 37 37 38 38 38 38

14

Error messages reported by GRUB . . . . . . . 38

14.1 14.2 14.3 Errors reported by the Stage 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Errors reported by the Stage 1.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Errors reported by the Stage 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

15

Invoking the grub shell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

15.1 15.2 15.3 Introduction into the grub shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 How to install GRUB via grub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The map between BIOS drives and OS devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

16 17

Invoking grub-install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Invoking grub-md5-crypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

iv

GRUB Manual

18 19

Invoking grub-terminfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Invoking mbchk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Appendix A How to obtain and build GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Appendix B 20 21 Reporting bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Where GRUB will go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Hacking GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 21.7 21.8 21.9 21.10 21.11 The memory map of various components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Embedded variables in GRUB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The generic interface for lesystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The generic interface for built-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The bootstrap mechanism used in GRUB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to probe I/O ports used by INT 13H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How to detect all installed RAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INT 13H disk I/O interrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The structure of Master Boot Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The format of partition tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where and how you should send patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 49 50 51 52 52 52 52 53 53 53

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53