xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/efibootmgr/efibootmgr.8 (revision 6aa1b4332f6c0b1d97599996beab32e45d0d0de4)

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.Dd December 17, 2023
.Dt EFIBOOTMGR 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm efibootmgr
.Nd manipulate the EFI Boot Manager
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl v
.Nm
.Fl a
.Fl b Ar bootnum
.Nm
.Fl A
.Fl b Ar bootnum
.Nm
.Fl B
.Fl b Ar bootnum
.Nm
.Fl c
.Fl l Ar loader
.Op Fl aD
.Op Fl b Ar bootnum
.Op Fl k Ar kernel
.Op Fl L Ar label
.Op Fl e Ar env
.Nm
.Fl E
.Op Fl d
.Op Fl p
.Nm
.Fl F
.Nm
.Fl f
.Nm
.Fl n
.Fl b Ar bootnum
.Nm
.Fl N
.Nm
.Fl o Ar bootorder
.Nm
.Fl t Ar timeout
.Nm
.Fl T
.Nm Fl u Ar unix-path
.Sh "DESCRIPTION"
The
.Nm
program manipulates how UEFI Boot Managers boot the system.
It can create and destroy methods for booting along with activating or
deactivating them.
It can also change the defined order of boot methods.
It can create a temporary boot (BootNext) variable that references a
boot method to be tried once upon the next boot.
.Pp
The UEFI standard defines how hosts may control what is used to
bootstrap the system.
Each method is encapsulated within a persistent UEFI variable, stored
by the UEFI BIOS of the form
.Cm Boot Ns Em XXXX
(where XXXX are uppercase hexadecimal digits).
These variables are numbered, each describing where to load the bootstrap
program from, and whether or not the method is active (used for booting,
otherwise the method will be skipped).
The order of these methods is controlled by another variable,
.Cm BootOrder .
The currently booted method is communicated using
.Cm BootCurrent .
A global timeout can also be set.
.Pp
.Nm
requires that the kernel module
.Xr efirt 9
module be present or loaded to get and set these
non-volatile variables.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a -activate
Activate the given
.Ar bootnum
boot entry, or the new entry when used with
.Fl c .
.It Fl A -deactivate
Deactivate the given
.Ar bootnum
boot entry.
.It Fl b -bootnum Ar bootnum
When creating or modifying an entry, use
.Ar bootnum
as the index.
When creating a new entry, fail if it already exists.
For convenience, if
.Ar bootnum
is prefixed with
.Dq boot ,
that prefix is ignored.
.It Fl B -delete
Delete the given
.Ar bootnum
boot entry.
.It Fl c -create
Create a new
.Cm Boot
variable (aka method or entry).
.It Fl D -dry-run
Process but do not change any variables.
.It Fl e -env
When creating a
.Cm Boot
variable, include a set of environment variables for the loader to set after
parsing the command line.
Variables are of the form
.Dq a=b
and separated by spaces.
The argument should be quoted.
.Nm appends these to the end of the
.Cm Boot
environment variable.
Before processing anything else,
.Xr loader.efi 8
will parse this area and set all variables found there.
.It Fl E -esp
Print the
.Fx
path to the ESP device, derived from the EFI variables
.Va BootCurrent
and
.Va BootXXXX .
This is the ESP partition used by UEFI to boot the current
instance of the system.
If
.Fl d -device-path
is specified, the UEFI device path to the ESP is reported instead.
If
.Fl p -unix-path
is specified, the mount point of the ESP is reported instead.
.It Fl f -fw-ui , Fl F -no-fw-ui
Set or clear the request to the system firmware to stop in its user
interface on the next boot.
.It Fl k -kernel Ar kernel
The path to and name of the kernel.
.It Fl l -loader Ar loader
The path to and name of the loader.
.It Fl L -label Ar label
An optional description for the method.
.It Fl n -bootnext
Set
.Ar bootnum
boot entry as the
.Cm BootNext
variable.
.It Fl N -delete-bootnext
Delete the
.Cm BootNext
optional variable.
.It Fl o -bootorder Ar bootorder
Set
.Cm BootOrder
variable to the given comma delimited set of
.Ar bootnum Ns s .
The numbers are in hex to match
.Cm Boot Ns Em XXXX ,
but may omit leading zeros.
.It Fl t -set-timeout Ar timeout
Set the bootmenu timeout value.
.It Fl T -del-timeout
Delete the
.Cm BootTimeout
variable.
.It Fl u -efidev Ar unix-path
Displays the UEFI device path of
.Ar unix-path .
.It Fl v -verbose
Display the device path of boot entries in the output.
.El
.Sh Examples
To display the current
.Cm Boot
related variables in the system:
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -v
.Pp
This will display the optional
.Cm BootNext
(if present),
.Cm BootCurrent
(currently booted method), followed by the optional
.Cm Timeout
value, any
.Cm BootOrder
that may be set, followed finally by all currently defined
.Cm Boot
variables, active or not.
The verbose flag,
.Pq Fl v ,
augments this output with the disk partition uuids,
size/offset and device-path of the variable.
The flag will also include any unreferenced (by BootOrder) variables.
.Pp
The
.Nm
program can be used to create new EFI boot variables.
The following command may be used to create a new boot method, using
the EFI partition mounted under
.Pa /boot/efi ,
mark the method active, using
the given loader and label the method
.Qq FreeBSD-15 :
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -a -c -l /boot/efi/EFI/freebsd/loader.efi -L FreeBSD-15
.Pp
This will result in the next available bootnum being assigned to a
new UEFI boot variable, and given the label
.Qq FreeBSD-15
such as:
.Pp
.Dl Boot0009 FreeBSD-15
.Pp
Note newly created boot entries are, by default, created inactive, hence
the reason
.Fl a
flag is specified above so that it will be considered for booting.
The active state is denoted by a '*' following the
.Cm Boot Ns Em XXXX
name in the output.
They are also inserted into the first position of current
.Cm BootOrder
variable if it exists.
They must first be set to active before being considered available to attempt
booting from, else they are ignored.
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -B -b 0009
.Pp
Will delete the given boot entry Boot0009.
.Pp
To set the given boot entry active:
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -a -b 0009
.Pp
To set a given boot entry to be used as the
.Cm BootNext
variable, irrespective of its active state, use:
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -n -b 0009
.Pp
To set the
.Cm BootOrder
for the next reboot use:
.Pp
.Dl efibootmgr -o 0009,0003,...
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr efirt 9 ,
.Xr efivar 8 ,
.Xr gpart 8 ,
.Xr uefi 8
.Sh STANDARDS
The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Specification is available
from
.Pa www.uefi.org .