loader.conf
systemd
loader.conf
5
loader.conf
Configuration file for systemd-boot
ESP/loader/loader.conf,
ESP/loader/entries/*.conf
XBOOTLDR/loader/entries/*.conf
Description
systemd-boot7 will
read ESP/loader/loader.conf, and any files with the
.conf extension under
ESP/loader/entries/ on the EFI system partition (ESP),
and XBOOTLDR/loader/entries/ on the extended boot loader
partition (XBOOTLDR) as defined by Boot Loader
Specification.
Each of these configuration files must consist of series of newline (i.e. ASCII code 10) separated
lines, each consisting of an option name, followed by whitespace, and the option
value. # may be used to start a comment line. Empty and comment lines are ignored. The
files use UTF-8 encoding.
Boolean arguments may be written as
yes/y/true/t/on/1 or
no/n/false/f/off/0.
Options
The configuration options supported by
ESP/loader/entries/*.conf and
XBOOTLDR/loader/entries/*.conf files are defined as part
of the Boot Loader
Specification.
The following configuration are supported by the loader.conf configuration
file:
default
A glob pattern to select the default entry. The default entry
may be changed in the boot menu itself, in which case the name of the
selected entry will be stored as an EFI variable, overriding this option.
If set to @saved the chosen entry will be saved as an EFI variable
on every boot and automatically selected the next time the boot loader starts.
Automatically detected entries will use the following names:
Name
Description
auto-efi-default
EFI Default Loader
auto-efi-shell
EFI Shell
auto-osx
macOS
auto-reboot-to-firmware-setup
Reboot Into Firmware Interface
auto-windows
Windows Boot Manager
Supported glob wildcard patterns are ?, *, and
[…] (including ranges). Note that these patterns use the same syntax as
glob7,
but do not support all features. In particular, set negation and named character classes are not
supported. The matching is done case-insensitively on the entry ID (as shown by bootctl
list).
timeout
How long the boot menu should be shown before the default
entry is booted, in seconds. This may be changed in the boot menu itself and
will be stored as an EFI variable in that case, overriding this option.
If set to menu-hidden or 0 (the default) no menu
is shown and the default entry will be booted immediately. The menu can be shown
by pressing and holding a key before systemd-boot is launched. Setting this to
menu-force disables the timeout while always showing the menu.
console-mode
This option configures the resolution of the console. Takes a
number or one of the special values listed below. The following values may be
used:
0
Standard UEFI 80x25 mode
1
80x50 mode, not supported by all devices
2
the first non-standard mode provided by the device
firmware, if any
auto
Pick a suitable mode automatically using heuristics
max
Pick the highest-numbered available mode
keep
Keep the mode selected by firmware (the default)
editor
Takes a boolean argument. Enable (the default) or disable the
editor. The editor should be disabled if the machine can be accessed by
unauthorized persons.
auto-entries
Takes a boolean argument. Enable (the default) or disable
entries for other boot entries found on the boot partition. In particular,
this may be useful when loader entries are created to show replacement
descriptions for those entries.
auto-firmware
A boolean controlling the presence of the "Reboot into firmware" entry
(enabled by default). If this is disabled, the firmware interface may still be reached
by using the f key.
beep
Takes a boolean argument. If timeout enabled beep every second, otherwise beep n times when n-th entry in boot menu is selected (default disabled).
Currently, only x86 is supported, where it uses the PC speaker.
secure-boot-enroll
Danger: this feature might soft-brick your device if used improperly.
Takes one of off, manual or force.
Controls the enrollment of secure boot keys. If set to off, no action whatsoever
is taken. If set to manual (the default) and the UEFI firmware is in setup-mode
then entries to manually enroll Secure Boot variables are created in the boot menu. If set to
force, in addition, if a directory named /loader/keys/auto/
exists on the ESP then the keys in that directory are enrolled automatically.
The different sets of variables can be set up under /loader/keys/NAME
where NAME is the name that is going to be used as the name of the entry.
This allows one to ship multiple sets of Secure Boot variables and choose which one to enroll at runtime.
Supported secure boot variables are one database for authorized images, one key exchange key (KEK)
and one platform key (PK). For more information, refer to the UEFI specification,
under Secure Boot and Driver Signing. Another resource that describe the interplay of the different variables is the
EDK2 documentation.
A complete set of UEFI variable includes db.auth, KEK.auth
and PK.auth. Note that these files need to be authenticated UEFI variables. See
below for an example of how to generate them from regular X.509 keys.
uuid=$(systemd-id128 new --uuid)
for key in PK KEK db; do
openssl req -new -x509 -subj "/CN=${key}/" -keyout "${key}.key" -out "${key}.crt"
openssl x509 -outform DER -in "${key}.crt" -out "${key}.cer"
cert-to-efi-sig-list -g "${uuid}" "${key}.crt" "${key}.esl"
done
for key in MicWinProPCA2011_2011-10-19.crt MicCorUEFCA2011_2011-06-27.crt MicCorKEKCA2011_2011-06-24.crt; do
curl "https://www.microsoft.com/pkiops/certs/${key}" --output "${key}"
sbsiglist --owner 77fa9abd-0359-4d32-bd60-28f4e78f784b --type x509 --output "${key%crt}esl" "${key}"
done
# Optionally add Microsoft Windows Production CA 2011 (needed to boot into Windows).
cat MicWinProPCA2011_2011-10-19.esl >> db.esl
# Optionally add Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011 (for firmware drivers / option ROMs
# and third-party boot loaders (including shim). This is highly recommended on real
# hardware as not including this may soft-brick your device (see next paragraph).
cat MicCorUEFCA2011_2011-06-27.esl >> db.esl
# Optionally add Microsoft Corporation KEK CA 2011. Recommended if either of the
# Microsoft keys is used as the official UEFI revocation database is signed with this
# key. The revocation database can be updated with fwupdmgr1.
cat MicCorKEKCA2011_2011-06-24.esl >> KEK.esl
sign-efi-sig-list -c PK.crt -k PK.key PK PK.esl PK.auth
sign-efi-sig-list -c PK.crt -k PK.key KEK KEK.esl KEK.auth
sign-efi-sig-list -c KEK.crt -k KEK.key db db.esl db.auth
This feature is considered dangerous because even if all the required files are signed with the
keys being loaded, some files necessary for the system to function properly still won't be. This
is especially the case with Option ROMs (e.g. for storage controllers or graphics cards). See
Secure Boot and Option ROMs
for more details.
reboot-for-bitlocker
Caveat: This feature is experimental, and is likely to be changed (or removed in its
current form) in a future version of systemd.
Work around BitLocker requiring a recovery key when the boot loader was
updated (disabled by default).
Try to detect BitLocker encrypted drives along with an active TPM. If both are found
and Windows Boot Manager is selected in the boot menu, set the BootNext
EFI variable and restart the system. The firmware will then start Windows Boot Manager
directly, leaving the TPM PCRs in expected states so that Windows can unseal the encryption
key. This allows systemd-boot to be updated without having to provide the recovery key for
BitLocker drive unlocking.
Note that the PCRs that Windows uses can be configured with the
Configure TPM platform validation profile for native UEFI firmware configurations
group policy under Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\BitLocker Drive Encryption.
When secure boot is enabled, changing this to PCRs 0,2,7,11 should be safe.
The TPM key protector needs to be removed and then added back for the PCRs on an already
encrypted drive to change. If PCR 4 is not measured, this setting can be disabled to speed
up booting into Windows.
Example
# /boot/efi/loader/loader.conf
timeout 0
default 01234567890abcdef1234567890abdf0-*
editor no
The menu will not be shown by default (the menu can still be shown by
pressing and holding a key during boot). One of the entries with files with a
name starting with 01234567890abcdef1234567890abdf0- will be
selected by default. If more than one entry matches, the one with the highest
priority will be selected (generally the one with the highest version number).
The editor will be disabled, so it is not possible to alter the kernel command
line.
See Also
systemd-boot7,
bootctl1