href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-4/20/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.7.9</p>
+5/15/2014, referencing rEFInd 0.8.1</p>
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<p>Another way to hide a boot loader is to move it into rEFInd's own directory. In order to keep rEFInd from showing up in its own menu, it ignores boot loaders in its own directory. This obviously includes the rEFInd binary file itself, but also anything else you might store there.</p>
+<p>You can also use the <tt>dont_scan_volumes</tt>, <tt>dont_scan_dirs</tt>, and <tt>dont_scan_files</tt> tokens in <tt>refind.conf</tt> to hide entire volumes, directories, and individual files, respectively. Note that <tt>dont_scan_volumes</tt> works with both EFI and legacy scans, whereas the other two options make sense for hiding only EFI-mode boot loaders.</p>
+
<a name="icons">
<h2>Setting OS Icons</h2>
</a>
-<p>In addition to hiding boot loaders, you can adjust their icons. You can do this in any of six ways for auto-detected boot loaders:</p>
+<p>In addition to hiding boot loaders, you can adjust their icons. You can do this in any of seven ways for auto-detected boot loaders:</p>
<ul>
<li>You can give the filesystem from which the boot loader is loaded a name that matches the OS name component of the icon filename. For instance, if you call your boot filesystem <tt>CentOS</tt>, it matches the <tt>os_centos.icns</tt> icon. This match is performed on a word-by-word basis within the name, with "words" being delimited by spaces, dashes (<tt>-</tt>), and underscores (<tt>_</tt>). Thus, a volume called <tt>Debian-boot</tt> will match <tt>os_debian.icns</tt> or <tt>os_boot.icns</tt>.</li>
+<li>You can give the GPT partition from which the boot loader is loaded a name that matches the OS name component of the icon filename. This works much like the previous method, except that you'd use a tool like <tt>gdisk</tt> or <tt>parted</tt> to set the partition's name, rather than <tt>tune2fs</tt> or GParted to set the filesystem's name.</li>
+
<li>rEFInd attempts to guess the Linux distribution based on data in the <tt>/etc/os-release</tt> file. This file will only be accessible if a separate <tt>/boot</tt> partition is <i>not</i> used, though. Manually adjusting the <tt>os-release</tt> file to change an OS icon in rEFInd is <i>not</i> recommended.</li>
<li>Certain boot loaders have hard-coded icons associated with them. For instance, filenames beginning with <tt>vmlinuz</tt> or <tt>bzImage</tt> acquire Linux "Tux" icon and the <tt>bootmgfw.efi</tt> loader acquires a Windows icon. Fedora and Red Hat kernels can be identified by the presence of <tt>.fc</tt> or <tt>.el</tt> strings in their filenames, and so acquire suitable icons automatically. For the most part, these are the associations you want to overcome with the preceding rules, but sometimes renaming a boot loader to a more conventional name is the better approach. Renaming a locally-compiled kernel so that it acquires a Fedora or Red Hat icon is reasonable, but I don't recommend renaming precompiled kernels unless you also manually copy them to the ESP.</li>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>dont_scan_volumes</tt> or <tt>don't_scan_volumes</tt></td>
- <td>filesystem label(s)</td>
- <td>Adds the specified volume or volumes to a volume "blacklist"—these filesystems are <i>not</i> scanned for EFI boot loaders. This may be useful to keep unwanted EFI boot entries, such as for a Macintosh recovery partition, from appearing on the main list of boot loaders. The default value is <tt>"Recovery HD", LRS_ESP</tt>, to keep the Mac OS X and Lenovo Windows recovery volumes from appearing. (These should get their own tools icon instead—see the <tt>showtools</tt> token.) Note that on a Macintosh with whole-disk encryption, you may need to uncomment this token and leave <tt>"Recovery HD"</tt> <i>off</i> the list to boot the system.</td>
+ <td>filesystem or partition label(s)</td>
+ <td>Adds the specified volume or volumes to a volume "blacklist"—these filesystems are <i>not</i> scanned for EFI boot loaders. This may be useful to keep unwanted EFI boot entries, such as for a Macintosh recovery partition, from appearing on the main list of boot loaders. The default value is <tt>"Recovery HD", LRS_ESP</tt>, to keep the Mac OS X and Lenovo Windows recovery volumes from appearing. (These should get their own tools icon instead—see the <tt>showtools</tt> token.) Note that on a Macintosh with whole-disk encryption, you may need to uncomment this token and leave <tt>"Recovery HD"</tt> <i>off</i> the list to boot the system. You can use <tt>dont_scan_volumes</tt> to hide disks or partitions from legacy-mode scans, too. In this case, you can enter any part of the description that appears beneath the icons to hide entries that include the string you specify.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>dont_scan_dirs</tt> or <tt>don't_scan_dirs</tt></td>
<h2>Creating OS Stanzas</h2>
</a>
-<p>OS stanzas in rEFInd are similar to those in GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, or ELILO. You can use them to add configuration options to those that are auto-detected. You cannot modify the auto-detected options, though; if you just want to tweak one OS's configuration, you have several options, none of which is ideal:</p>
+<p>OS stanzas in rEFInd are similar to those in GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, or ELILO. You can use them to add EFI boot loaders to those that are auto-detected. rEFInd does not yet support manual boot stanzas for BIOS-mode boot loaders. You also cannot modify the auto-detected options; if you just want to tweak one OS's configuration, you have several options, none of which is ideal:</p>
<ul>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>volume</tt></td>
- <td>filesystem label</td>
- <td>Sets the volume that's used for subsequent file accesses (by <tt>icon</tt> and <tt>loader</tt>, and by implication by <tt>initrd</tt> if <tt>loader</tt> follows <tt>volume</tt>). You pass this token a filesystem's label or a volume number. A filesystem label is typically displayed under the volume's icon in file managers and that rEFInd displays on its menu at the end of the boot prompt string. If this label isn't unique, the first volume with the specified label is used. The matching is nominally case-insensitive, but on some EFIs it's case-sensitive. If a filesystem has no label, you can use a volume number followed by a colon, such as <tt>0:</tt> to refer to the first filesystem or <tt>1:</tt> to refer to the second. The assignment of numbers is arbitrary and may not be consistent across boots, though. It might change if you insert an optical disc or plug in a USB flash drive, for instance. If this option is not set, the volume defaults to the one from which rEFInd launched.</td>
+ <td>filesystem label, partition label, GUID value, or filesystem number</td>
+ <td>Sets the volume that's used for subsequent file accesses (by <tt>icon</tt> and <tt>loader</tt>, and by implication by <tt>initrd</tt> if <tt>loader</tt> follows <tt>volume</tt>). You pass this token a filesystem's label, a partition's label, a partition's GUID, or a volume number. A filesystem or partition label is typically displayed under the volume's icon in file managers and rEFInd displays it on its menu at the end of the boot prompt string. If this label isn't unique, the first volume with the specified label is used. The matching is nominally case-insensitive, but on some EFIs it's case-sensitive. If a filesystem has no label, you can use a partition GUID number. You can also use a volume number followed by a colon, such as <tt>0:</tt> to refer to the first filesystem or <tt>1:</tt> to refer to the second. The assignment of numbers is arbitrary and may not be consistent across boots, though. It might change if you insert an optical disc or plug in a USB flash drive, for instance. If this option is not set, the volume defaults to the one from which rEFInd launched.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>loader</tt></td>
<p>This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Gentoo Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the first two entries use different directory separators, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. The Ubuntu entry sets no icon, since rEFInd will note that the boot loader is stored in the <tt>ubuntu</tt> directory, and it will automatically find the appropriate Ubuntu icon (<tt>os_ubuntu.icns</tt>). This option is, however, disabled, so no matching icon will appear when you reboot unless you first comment out or delete the <tt>disabled</tt> line.</p>
-<p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> Under Linux, you can learn a filesystem's label by using <tt>blkid</tt>, as in <tt class="userinput">blkid /dev/sda1</tt>. The filesystem's label, if set, is identified by the keyword <tt>LABEL</tt> in the output.</p>
+<p class="sidebar"><b>Tip:</b> Under Linux, you can learn a filesystem's label by using <tt>blkid</tt>, as in <tt class="userinput">blkid /dev/sda1</tt>. The filesystem's label, if set, is identified by the keyword <tt>LABEL</tt> in the output. Some versions also return the partition's label and partition GUID (referred to as <tt>PARTUUID</tt> by <tt>blkid</tt>). You can obtain the partition's name and unique GUID using <tt>sgdisk</tt>, as in <tt class="userinput">sgdisk -i 1 /dev/sda</tt> to find the data on <tt>/dev/sda1</tt>.</p>
-<p>The Gentoo entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the <tt>icon</tt> line after the <tt>volume</tt> line.) This entry uses the <tt>volume</tt> token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem called <tt>G_KERNELS</tt>. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the <tt>initrd</tt> line and free-form options using the <tt>options</tt> line. Note that the kernel filename does <i>not</i> include a <tt>.efi</tt> extension, which keeps rEFInd from picking up the kernel file in its auto-scans.</p>
+<p>The Gentoo entry begins with an icon specification to be sure that the icon is loaded from the same volume as rEFInd. (If the icon were stored on the same filesystem as the kernel, you'd place the <tt>icon</tt> line after the <tt>volume</tt> line.) This entry uses the <tt>volume</tt> token to tell rEFInd to load the kernel and initial RAM disk file from the filesystem or partition called <tt>G_KERNELS</tt>. It passes the filename for an initial RAM disk using the <tt>initrd</tt> line and free-form options using the <tt>options</tt> line. Note that the kernel filename does <i>not</i> include a <tt>.efi</tt> extension, which keeps rEFInd from picking up the kernel file in its auto-scans.</p>
<p>The <tt>Windows via shell script</tt> entry may seem puzzling, but its purpose is to launch an OS (Windows in this case) after performing additional pre-boot initialization, which is handled by an EFI shell script. This works because you can pass the name of a shell script to an EFI shell—the script is named on the stanza's <tt>options</tt> line, using EFI file notation. The shell script, in turn, does whatever it needs to do and then launches the OS's boot loader:</p>