NAME¶

elilo - Installer for the EFI Linux Loader

SYNOPSIS¶

/usr/sbin/elilo [options]

 Options:
      --refresh-EBM     refresh EFI boot menu
   -k --keep            don't purge old files
   -t --test            test only
   -v --verbose         increase verbosity
   -h --help            brief help message
      --man             full documentation
   -V --version         display version

OPTIONS¶

--refresh-EBM

Recreate EFI boot manager menu entries based on information in "/etc/elilo.conf".

--test

Test only. Do not really write anything, no new boot configuration nor kernel/initrd images. Use together with -v to find out what elilo is about to do.

--verbose

Increase level of verbosity.

--help

Print a brief help message and exits.

--man

Prints the manual page and exits.

--version

Prints the version information and exits.

DESCRIPTION¶

This program will perform all steps to transfer the necessary parts to the appropriate locations...

LIMITATIONS¶

For now, all image-entries are treated as "optional" in order to more closely match the behavior of the real loader (i.e. "elilo.efi"), which silently ignores missing files while reading the configuration.

This may be considered a bug by experienced LILO users, where only those specifically marked as such are treated that way.

It is planned to introduce keywords like "mandatory" and "optional" in future releases though.

EFI Boot Manager Failure¶

Creation of EFI Boot Manager menu entries needs some space in non-volatile memory. This space is limited--even more so, since Linux dares using only half of it. Therefore "--refresh-EBM" may fail with an "unexpected error". If you encounter this, you basically have two options. Either free up some space (e.g. old "dump-typeN" variables or outdated boot entries) and reboot. (The tricky part here is to not remove vital system variables.) Or, if you are really sure that your UEFI does sane garbage-collection and fulfills the specification, you may use the "efi_no_storage_paranoia" kernel parameter. But beware, using this parameter with faulty firmware may brick your board!

Note: there are boards, which always use more than 50% of NVRAM. Those factually leave no choice.

SEE ALSO¶

/usr/share/doc/packages/elilo