href="mailto:rodsmith@rodsbooks.com">rodsmith@rodsbooks.com</a></p>
<p>Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update:
-11/1/2015, referencing rEFInd 0.9.3</p>
+10/9/2016, referencing rEFInd 0.10.4</p>
<p>This Web page is provided free of charge and with no annoying outside ads; however, I did take time to prepare it, and Web hosting does cost money. If you find this Web page useful, please consider making a small donation to help keep this site up and running. Thanks!</p>
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<div style="float:right; width:55%">
-<p>Many casual users will be able to use rEFInd without making changes to its settings; in its default configuration, the boot manager automatically detects all the EFI boot loader programs you have on your EFI System Partition (ESP) (or your OS X boot partition, in the case of Macs) and displays icons for them. On Macs, rEFInd also presents legacy BIOS boot options by default. Sometimes, though, you may want to tweak rEFInd's configuration. Sometimes you can obtain your desired results by adjusting the filenames of your boot loaders. Other times, you can edit rEFInd's configuration file, <tt>refind.conf</tt>, which resides in the same directory as its binary file (<tt>refind_x64.efi</tt> or whatever you've renamed it).</p>
+<p>Many casual users will be able to use rEFInd without making changes to its settings; in its default configuration, the boot manager automatically detects all the EFI boot loader programs you have on your EFI System Partition (ESP) (or your OS X boot partition, in the case of Macs) in conventional locations and displays icons for them. On Macs, rEFInd also presents legacy BIOS boot options by default. Sometimes, though, you may want to tweak rEFInd's configuration. Sometimes you can obtain your desired results by adjusting the filenames of your boot loaders. Other times, you can edit rEFInd's configuration file, <tt>refind.conf</tt>, which resides in the same directory as its binary file (<tt>refind_x64.efi</tt> or whatever you've renamed it).</p>
</div>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>showtools</tt></td>
- <td><tt>shell</tt>, <tt>memtest</tt>, <tt>gdisk</tt>, <tt>gptsync</tt>, <tt>apple_recovery</tt>, <tt>csr_rotate</tt>, <tt>mok_tool</tt>, <tt>netboot</tt>, <tt>about</tt>, <tt>exit</tt>, <tt>shutdown</tt>, <tt>reboot</tt>, and <tt>firmware</tt></td>
- <td>Specifies which tool tags to display on the second row. <tt>shell</tt> launches an EFI shell, <tt>memtest</tt> (or <tt>memtest86</tt>) launches the <a href="http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm">Memtest86</a> program, <tt>gdisk</tt> launches the partitioning tool of the same name, <tt>gptsync</tt> launches a tool that creates a hybrid MBR, <tt>apple_recovery</tt> boots the OS X Recovery HD, <tt>csr_rotate</tt> rotates through System Integrity Protection (SIP) values specified by <tt>csr_values</tt>, <tt>windows_recovery</tt> boots a Windows recovery tool, <tt>mok_tool</tt> launches a tool to manage Machine Owner Keys (MOKs) on systems with Secure Boot active, <tt>netboot</tt> launches the network boot tool (iPXE), <tt>about</tt> displays information about rEFInd, <tt>exit</tt> terminates rEFInd, <tt>shutdown</tt> shuts down the computer (or reboots it, on some UEFI PCs), <tt>reboot</tt> reboots the computer, and <tt>firmware</tt> reboots the computer into the computer's own setup utility. The tags appear in the order in which you specify them. The default is <tt>shell, memtest, gdisk, apple_recovery, mok_tool, about, shutdown, reboot, firmware</tt>. Note that the <tt>shell</tt>, <tt>memtest</tt>, <tt>apple_recovery</tt>, and <tt>mok_tool</tt> options all require the presence of programs not included with rEFInd. The <tt>gptsync</tt> option requires use of a like-named program which, although it ships with rEFInd 0.6.9 and later, is not installed by default except under OS X. See the <a href="installing.html#addons">"Installing Additional Components"</a> section of the <a href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page for pointers to the shell, Memtest86, and <tt>gptsync</tt> programs. The <tt>apple_recovery</tt> option will appear only if you've got an Apple Recovery HD partition (which has a boot loader called <tt>com.apple.recovery.boot/boot.efi</tt>). The <tt>firmware</tt> option works only on computers that support this option; on other computers, the option is quietly ignored. See the <a href="secureboot.html">Secure Boot</a> page for information on Secure Boot and MOK management.</td>
+ <td><tt>shell</tt>, <tt>memtest</tt>, <tt>gdisk</tt>, <tt>gptsync</tt>, <tt>apple_recovery</tt>, <tt>csr_rotate</tt>, <tt>mok_tool</tt>, <tt>fwupdate</tt>, <tt>netboot</tt>, <tt>about</tt>, <tt>exit</tt>, <tt>shutdown</tt>, <tt>reboot</tt>, and <tt>firmware</tt></td>
+ <td>Specifies which tool tags to display on the second row. <tt>shell</tt> launches an EFI shell, <tt>memtest</tt> (or <tt>memtest86</tt>) launches the <a href="http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm">Memtest86</a> program, <tt>gdisk</tt> launches the partitioning tool of the same name, <tt>gptsync</tt> launches a tool that creates a hybrid MBR, <tt>apple_recovery</tt> boots the OS X Recovery HD, <tt>csr_rotate</tt> rotates through System Integrity Protection (SIP) values specified by <tt>csr_values</tt>, <tt>windows_recovery</tt> boots a Windows recovery tool, <tt>mok_tool</tt> launches a tool to manage Machine Owner Keys (MOKs) on systems with Secure Boot active, <tt>
fwupdate</tt> launches a firmware-update tool, <tt>netboot</tt> launches the network boot tool (iPXE), <tt>about</tt> displays information about rEFInd, <tt>exit</tt> terminates rEFInd, <tt>shutdown</tt> shuts down the computer (or reboots it, on some UEFI PCs), <tt>reboot</tt> reboots the computer, and <tt>firmware</tt> reboots the computer into the computer's own setup utility. The tags appear in the order in which you specify them. The default is <tt>shell, memtest, gdisk, apple_recovery, mok_tool, about, shutdown, reboot, firmware</tt>. Note that the <tt>shell</tt>, <tt>memtest</tt>, <tt>apple_recovery</tt>, and <tt>mok_tool</tt> options all require the presence of programs not included with rEFInd. The <tt>gptsync</tt> option requires use of a like-named program which, although it ships with rEFInd 0.6.9 and later, is not installed by default except under OS X. See the <a href="installing.html#addons">"Installing Additional Components"</a> section of the <a href="installing.html">Installing rEFInd</a> page for pointers to the shell, Memtest86, and <tt>gptsync</tt> programs. The <tt>apple_recovery</tt> option will appear only if you've got an Apple Recovery HD partition (which has a boot loader called <tt>com.apple.recovery.boot/boot.efi</tt>). The <tt>firmware</tt> option works only on computers that support this option; on other computers, the option is quietly ignored. See the <a href="secureboot.html">Secure Boot</a> page for information on Secure Boot and MOK management.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>font</tt></td>
<td>one or two integer values</td>
<td>Sets the video resolution used by rEFInd; takes <i>either</i> a width and a height <i>or</i> a single UEFI video mode number as options. For instance, <tt>resolution 1024 768</tt> sets the resolution to 1024x768. On UEFI systems, <tt>resolution 1</tt> sets video mode 1, the resolution of which varies from system to system. If you set a resolution that doesn't work on a UEFI-based system, rEFInd displays a message along with a list of valid modes. On an system built around EFI 1.<i>x</i> (such as a Mac), setting an incorrect resolution fails silently; you'll get the system's default resolution. You'll also get the system's default resolution if you set both resolution values to <tt>0</tt> or if you pass anything but two numbers. (Note that passing a resolution with an <tt>x</tt>, as in <tt>1024x768</tt>, will be interpreted as <i>one</i> option and so will cause the default resolution to be used.) If you get a higher resolution than you request, try commenting out or changing the <tt>textmode</tt> value, since it can force the system to use a higher graphics resolution than you specify with <tt>resolution</tt>. Also, be aware that it is possible to set a valid resolution for your video card that's invalid for your monitor. If you do this, your monitor will go blank until you've booted an OS that resets the video mode.</td>
</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><tt>enable_touch</tt></td>
+ <td>none or one of <tt>true</tt>, <tt>on</tt>, <tt>1</tt>, <tt>false</tt>, <tt>off</tt>, or <tt>0</tt></td>
+ <td>Enables support for touch screens (as on tablets). Note that not all tablets provide the necessary support. If this feature is enabled and the tablet supports it, touching an OS or tool should launch it or enter a submenu. In a submenu, it is currently not possible to select a specific item; any touch will launch the default submenu option.</td>
+</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>use_graphics_for</tt></td>
<td><tt>osx</tt>, <tt>linux</tt>, <tt>elilo</tt>, <tt>grub</tt>, and <tt>windows</tt></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>default_selection</tt></td>
- <td>a substring of a boot loader's title, or a numeric position; optionally followed by two times in <tt class="variable">HH:MM</tt> format</td>
- <td>Sets the default boot OS based on the loader's title, which appears in the main menu beneath the icons when you select the loader. You can enter any substring of the title as the <tt>default_selection</tt>, so long as it's two or more characters in length. It's best to use a unique substring, since rEFInd stops searching when it finds the first match. Because rEFInd sorts entries within a directory in descending order by file modification time, if you specify a directory (or volume name, for loaders in a partition's root directory) as the <tt>default_selection</tt>, the newest loader in that directory will be the default. One-character entries are matched against the first character of the title, except for digits, which refer to the numeric order of the boot loader entries. If you specify a comma-delimited list of names <i><b>in quotation marks,</b></i> rEFInd will search on these in turn until it finds a match. For instance, <tt>default_selection "alpha,beta"</tt> will launch <tt>alpha</tt> if it's available, and <tt>beta</tt> if <tt>alpha</tt> is not available but <tt>beta</tt> is. If the <i>first</i> item in such a list is a plus sign (<tt>+</tt>), that refers to the item that rEFInd launched the last time it ran. You may optionally follow the match string by two times, in 24-hour format, in which case the entry applies only between those two times. For instance, <tt>default_selection Safety 1:30 2:30</tt> boots the entry called <tt>Safety</tt> by default between the hours of 1:30 and 2:30. These times are specified in whatever format the motherboard clock uses (local time or UTC). If the first value is larger than the second, as in <tt>23:00 1:00</tt>, it is interpreted as crossing midnight—11:00 PM to 1:00 AM in this example. The last <tt>default_selection</tt> setting takes precedence over preceding ones <i>if</i> the time value matches. Thus, you can set a main <tt>default_selection</tt> without a time specification and then set one or more others to override the main setting at specific times. If you do not specify a <tt>default_selection</tt>, rEFInd attempts to boot the previously-booted entry, or the first entry if there's no record of that or if the previously-booted entry can't be found.</td>
+ <td>a substring of a boot loader's title, <tt>+</tt>, or a numeric position; optionally followed by two times in <tt class="variable">HH:MM</tt> format</td>
+ <td>Sets the default boot OS based on the loader's title, which appears in the main menu beneath the icons when you select the loader. This token takes one or three variables. The first variable is a set of one or more identifiers. If you specify more than one or if the identifier contains a space, it must be <i><b>in quotation marks.</b></i> If more than one identifier is present, they must be specified as a comma-separated list, all within a single set of quotation marks. For instance, <tt>default_selection "alpha,beta"</tt> will launch <tt>alpha</tt> if it's available, and <tt>beta</tt> if <tt>alpha</tt> is not available but <tt>beta</tt> is. Each identifier can be any one of three things:
+ <ul>
+ <li>The symbol <tt>+</tt>, which refers to the previously-launched boot entry. rEFInd stores (in NVRAM) the name of a boot entry before launching it, and effectively substitutes that stored string for the <tt>+</tt> in the <tt>default_selection</tt> line the next time rEFInd launches, then matches it as a string, as described next....</li>
+ <li>Any string, which is matched against boot descriptions. Note that rEFInd matches <i>substrings,</i> so you don't need to specify the complete description string, just a unique substring. Thus, <tt>default_selection vmlinuz</tt> matches <tt>vmlinuz</tt>, <tt>boot\vmlinuz-4.8.0-22-generic</tt>, or any other string that includes <tt>vmlinuz</tt>. rEFInd stops searching when it finds the first match. Because rEFInd sorts entries within a directory in descending order by file modification time, if you specify a directory (or volume name, for loaders in a partition's root directory) as the <tt>default_selection</tt>, the newest loader in that directory will be the default. As a special case, one-character strings are matched against the first character of the description, except for digits.</li>
+ <li>A digit (<tt>1</tt> to <tt>9</tt>), in which case the boot loader at that position in the boot list is launched. For instance, <tt>default_selection 2</tt> makes the second boot entry the default.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ You may optionally follow the match string by two times, in 24-hour format, in which case the entry applies only between those two times. For instance, <tt>default_selection Safety 1:30 2:30</tt> boots the entry called <tt>Safety</tt> by default between the hours of 1:30 and 2:30. These times are specified in whatever format the motherboard clock uses (local time or UTC). If the first value is larger than the second, as in <tt>23:00 1:00</tt>, it is interpreted as crossing midnight—11:00 PM to 1:00 AM in this example. The last <tt>default_selection</tt> setting takes precedence over preceding ones <i>if</i> the time value matches. Thus, you can set a main <tt>default_selection</tt> without a time specification and then set one or more others to override the main setting at specific times. If you do not specify a <tt>default_selection</tt>, rEFInd attempts to boot the previously-booted entry, or the first entry if there's no record of that or if the previously-booted entry can't be found.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>enable_and_lock_vmx</tt></td>
<td>On some Macs, this option causes rEFInd to tell the firmware that the specified version of OS X is being launched, even when another OS is selected. The effect is that the firmware may initialize hardware differently, which may have beneficial (or detrimental) results. If your Mac's video output isn't working normally, this option may help. On the other hand, keyboards and mice are known to sometimes stop functioning if this option is used, so you shouldn't use it unnecessarily. This option has no effect on non-Apple hardware. The default is to not use this feature.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
- <td><tt>csr_rotate</tt></td>
+ <td><tt>csr_values</tt></td>
<td>List of hexadecimal values</td>
- <td>Specifies values that may be set via the <tt>csr_rotate</tt> tool for Apple's System Integrity Protection (SIP). SIP stores values in NVRAM to set restrictions on what users (even <tt>root</tt>) may do in
recent versions of OS X. If you want to be able to control these restrictions in rEFInd, you must set the values you want to use here <i>and</i> set <tt>csr_rotate</tt> on the <tt>showtools</tt> line (which must also be uncommented). Note that values are specified in hexadecimal, with no leading <tt>0x</tt> or other hexadecimal indicator. SIP is described in more detail on many Web sites, such as <a href="http://osxarena.com/2015/10/guide-details-apples-system-integrity-protection-sip-for-hackintosh/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.idelta.info/archives/sip-rootless-internal-in-el-capitan/">here.</a></td>
+ <td>Specifies values that may be set via the <tt>csr_rotate</tt> tool for Apple's System Integrity Protection (SIP). SIP stores values in NVRAM to set restrictions on what users (even <tt>root</tt>) may do in
OS X 10.11. If you want to be able to control these restrictions in rEFInd, you must set the values you want to use here <i>and</i> set <tt>csr_rotate</tt> on the <tt>showtools</tt> line (which must also be uncommented). Note that values are specified in hexadecimal, with no leading <tt>0x</tt> or other hexadecimal indicator. SIP is described in more detail on many Web sites, such as <a href="http://osxarena.com/2015/10/guide-details-apples-system-integrity-protection-sip-for-hackintosh/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.idelta.info/archives/sip-rootless-internal-in-el-capitan/">here.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>include</tt></td>
</tr>
</table>
-<p>Prior to version 0.2.4, rEFInd supported a token called <tt>disable</tt>, whose function partially overlapped with <tt>hideui</tt>. Version 0.2.4 merges many of the features of these two tokens into <tt>hideui</tt> and creates the new <tt>showtools</tt> option, which provides the remaining functionality in a more flexible way.</p>
-
<p>As an example of rEFInd configuration, consider the following <tt>refind.conf</tt> file:</p>
<pre class="listing">
<p>As an example, consider the following entries:</p>
<pre class="listing">
-menuentry "Ubuntu Linux" {
+menuentry "Ubuntu" {
loader /EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi
disabled
}
}
</pre>
-<p>This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu Linux, one for Arch Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the final entry uses different directory separators from the first two, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. (The form of directory separators in <tt>options</tt> lines is important, though, because the program being launched may expect a particular directory separator character.) 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.png</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>This example sets up three entries: one for Ubuntu, one for Arch Linux, and one to launch a shell script. Note that the final entry uses different directory separators from the first two, simply to demonstrate the fact that it's possible. (The form of directory separators in <tt>options</tt> lines is important, though, because the program being launched may expect a particular directory separator character.) 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.png</tt>). This entire entry 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. 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>
<h2>Adjusting the Default Boot Option</h2>
</a>
-<p>Just before launching an OS, rEFInd stores the description in the EFI variable <tt>PreviousBoot</tt> with a GUID of 36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740. The next time it launches, it reads that same variable and sets the default boot loader to that value, if it's still available and if the first item in <tt>default_selection</tt> in the <tt>refind.conf</tt> file is a plus sign (<tt>+</tt>).</p>
+<p>Just before launching an OS, rEFInd stores the description in the EFI variable <tt>PreviousBoot</tt> with a GUID of 36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740. The next time rEFInd launches, it reads that same variable and sets the default boot loader to that value, if it's still available and if the first item in <tt>default_selection</tt> in the <tt>refind.conf</tt> file is a plus sign (<tt>+</tt>).</p>
<p>Under Linux, the variable that rEFInd uses to store this information is accessible as <tt>/sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PreviousBoot-36d08fa7-cf0b-42f5-8f14-68df73ed3740</tt>. Thus, you can back up this value, modify it, and write it back out to adjust your next-booted OS. Getting this string just right can be a bit tricky, though, and if the kernel doesn't like its format, it will not let you modify the variable. If you try to modify the variable, be aware that it's stored in UTF-16 format. As with the <tt>default_selection</tt> token in <tt>refind.conf</tt>, you can enter any substring that uniquely identifies the entry you want to boot.</p>
<hr />
-<p>copyright © 2012–2015 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
+<p>copyright © 2012–2016 by Roderick W. Smith</p>
<p>This document is licensed under the terms of the <a href="FDL-1.3.txt">GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.</a></p>