5.4 KiB
Limine configuration file
Location of the config file
Limine scans for a config file on the boot drive. Every partition on the boot drive
is scanned sequentially (first partition first, last partition last) for the presence
of either a /limine.cfg
or a /boot/limine.cfg
file, in that order.
Once the file is located, Limine will use it as its config file. Other possible candidates in subsequent partitions or directories are ignored.
It is thus imperative that the intended config file is placed in a location that will not be shadowed by another potentially candidate config file.
Structure of the config file
The Limine configuration file is comprised of assignments and entries.
Entries describe boot entries which the user can select in the boot menu.
An entry is simply a line starting with :
followed by a newline-terminated
string.
Any locally assignable key that comes after it, and before another entry, or
the end of the file, will be tied to the entry.
Assignments are simple KEY=VALUE
style assignments.
VALUE
can have spaces and =
symbols, without requiring quotations. New lines
are delimiters.
Some assignments are part of an entry (local), some other assignments are global. Global assignments can appear anywhere in the file and are not part of an entry, although usually one would put them at the beginning of the config. Some local assignments are shared between entries using any protocol, while other local assignments are specific to a given protocol.
Some keys take URIs as values; these are described in the next section.
Globally assignable keys are:
TIMEOUT
- Specifies the timeout in seconds before the first entry is automatically booted.DEFAULT_ENTRY
- 0-based entry index of the entry which will be automatically selected at startup. If unspecified, it is0
.GRAPHICS
- If set toyes
, do use graphical VESA framebuffer for the boot menu, else use text mode.MENU_RESOLUTION
- Specify screen resolution to be used by the Limine menu in the form<width>x<height>
. This will only affect the menu, not any booted OS. If not specified, Limine will pick a resolution automatically. If the resolution is not available, Limine will pick another one automatically. Ignored ifGRAPHICS
is notyes
.THEME_COLOURS
- Specifies the colour palette used by the terminal (AARRGGBB). It is a;
separated array of 8 colours: black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan, and gray, respectively. Ignored ifGRAPHICS
is notyes
.THEME_COLORS
- Alias ofTHEME_COLOURS
.THEME_MARGIN
- Set the amount of margin around the terminal. Ignored ifGRAPHICS
is notyes
.THEME_MARGIN_GRADIENT
- Set the thickness in pixel for the gradient around the terminal. Ignored ifGRAPHICS
is notyes
.BACKGROUND_PATH
- URI where to find the background .BMP file. Ignored ifGRAPHICS
is notyes
.STAGE2_MAP
- URI where to find the stage2 symbol map file for stacktraces and symbol name resolution at runtime.
Locally assignable (non protocol specific) keys are:
PROTOCOL
- The boot protocol that will be used to boot the kernel. Valid protocols are:linux
,stivale
,stivale2
,chainload
.CMDLINE
- The command line string to be passed to the kernel. Can be omitted.KERNEL_CMDLINE
- Alias ofCMDLINE
.
Locally assignable (protocol specific) keys are:
-
Linux protocol:
KERNEL_PATH
- The URI path of the kernel.MODULE_PATH
- The URI path to a module (such as initramfs).
Note that one can define this last variable multiple times to specify multiple modules.
-
stivale and stivale2 protocols:
KERNEL_PATH
- The URI path of the kernel.MODULE_PATH
- The URI path to a module.MODULE_STRING
- A string to be passed to a module.
Note that one can define these 2 last variable multiple times to specify multiple modules. The entries will be matched in order. E.g.: the 1st module path entry will be matched to the 1st module string entry that appear, and so on.
RESOLUTION
- The resolution to be used should the kernel request a graphical framebuffer. This setting takes the form of<width>x<height>x<bpp>
and overrides any resolution requested by the kernel, or automatic resolution requests. If the resolution is not available, Limine will pick another one automatically.
-
Chainload protocol:
DRIVE
- The 1-based BIOS drive to chainload.PARTITION
- The 1-based BIOS partition to chainload, if omitted, chainload drive.
URIs
A URI is a path that Limine uses to locate resources in the whole system. It is comprised of a resource, a root, and a path. It takes the form of:
resource://root/path
The format for root
changes depending on the resource used.
A resource can be one of the following:
bios
- Theroot
takes the form ofdrive:partition
; for example:bios://3:1/...
would use BIOS drive 3, partition 1. Partitions and BIOS drives are both 1-based. Omitting the drive is possible; for example:bios://:2/...
. Omitting the drive makes Limine use the boot drive.guid
- Theroot
takes the form of a GUID/UUID, such asguid://736b5698-5ae1-4dff-be2c-ef8f44a61c52/...
. It is a filesystem GUID and not a partition GUID.tftp
- Theroot
is the ip address of the tftp server to load the file from, if the root is left empty (tftp:///file.elf
) the file will be loaded from the server limine booted from.