GRUB2 is the next generation of the GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB). GRUB2 is derived from PUPA which was a research project to investigate the next generation of GRUB. GRUB2 has been rewritten from scratch to clean up everything and provide modularity and portability [1].

In brief, the bootloader is the first software program that runs when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and transferring control to the Linux kernel. The kernel, in turn, initializes the rest of the operating system.

Contents 1 Preface 1.1 Notes for current GRUB Legacy users 1.2 Preliminary Requirements for GRUB2 1.2.1 BIOS systems 1.2.1.1 GUID Partition Table (GPT) specific instructions 1.2.1.2 Master Boot Record (MBR) specific instructions 1.2.2 UEFI systems 1.2.2.1 Create and Mount the UEFI System Partition 2 Installation 2.1 BIOS systems 2.1.1 Backup Important Data 2.1.2 Install grub-bios package 2.1.3 Install grub-bios boot files 2.1.3.1 Install to 440-byte MBR boot code region 2.1.3.2 Install to GPT BIOS Boot Partition 2.1.3.3 Install to Partition or Partitionless Disk 2.1.3.4 Generate core.img alone 2.1.4 Generate GRUB2 BIOS Config file 2.1.5 Multiboot in BIOS 2.1.5.1 Boot Microsoft Windows installed in BIOS-MBR mode 2.2 UEFI systems 2.2.1 Hardware-Specific UEFI Examples 2.2.2 Install grub-uefi package 2.2.3 Install grub-uefi boot files 2.2.3.1 Install to UEFI System Partition 2.2.4 Generate GRUB2 UEFI Config file 2.2.5 Create GRUB2 entry in the Firmware Boot Manager 2.2.6 Create GRUB2 Standalone UEFI Application 2.2.7 Multiboot in UEFI 2.2.7.1 Chainload Microsoft Windows x86_64 UEFI-GPT 3 Configuration 3.1 Automatically generating using grub-mkconfig (Recommended) 3.1.1 Additional arguments 3.2 Manually creating grub.cfg 3.3 Dual-booting 3.3.1 Using grub-mkconfig 3.3.1.1 With GNU/Linux 3.3.1.2 With FreeBSD 3.3.1.3 With Windows 3.3.2 With Windows via EasyBCD and NeoGRUB 3.4 Visual Configuration 3.4.1 Setting the framebuffer resolution 3.4.2 915resolution hack 3.4.3 Background image and bitmap fonts 3.4.4 Theme 3.4.5 Menu colors 3.4.6 Hidden menu 3.4.7 Disable framebuffer 3.5 Other Options 3.5.1 LVM 3.5.2 RAID 3.5.3 Persistent block device naming 3.5.4 Using Labels 3.5.5 Recall previous entry 3.5.6 Security 3.5.7 Root Encryption 3.5.8 Boot non-default entry only once 3.6 Booting an ISO Directly From GRUB2 3.6.1 Arch ISO 3.6.2 Ubuntu ISO 3.6.3 Other ISOs 4 Using the command shell 4.1 Pager support 5 GUI configuration tools 6 parttool for hide/unhide 7 Using the rescue console 8 Combining the use of UUIDs and basic scripting 9 Troubleshooting 9.1 Intel BIOS not booting GPT 9.2 Enable GRUB2 debug messages 9.3 Correct GRUB2 No Suitable Mode Found Error 9.4 msdos-style error message 9.5 UEFI GRUB2 drops to shell 9.6 UEFI GRUB2 not loaded 9.7 Invalid signature 9.8 Boot freezes 9.9 Restore GRUB Legacy 10 References 11 External Links

Preface

Here is some information that needs to be clarified:

• The name GRUB officially refers to version 2 of the software, see [2]. If you are looking for the article on the legacy version, see GRUB Legacy.

• From 1.99-6 onwards, GRUB2 supports Btrfs as root (without a separate /boot filesystem) compressed with either zlib or LZO.

• For GRUB2 UEFI info, it is recommended to read the UEFI, GPT and UEFI Bootloaders pages before reading this page.

Notes for current GRUB Legacy users

• Upgrade from GRUB Legacy to GRUB2 is the much same as fresh installing GRUB2 which is coveredbelow.

• There are differences in the commands of GRUB and GRUB2. Familiarize yourself with GRUB2 commands before proceeding (e.g. "find" has been replaced with "search").

• GRUB2 is now modular and no longer requires "stage 1.5". As a result, the bootloader itself is limited -- modules are loaded from the hard drive as needed to expand functionality (e.g. for LVM or RAID support).

• Device naming has changed between GRUB and GRUB2. Partitions are numbered from 1 instead of 0 while drives are still numbered from 0, and prefixed with partition-table type. For example, /dev/sda1would be referred to as (hd0,msdos1) (for MBR) or (hd0,gpt1) (for GPT) using GRUB2.

Preliminary Requirements for GRUB2

BIOS systems

GUID Partition Table (GPT) specific instructions

GRUB2 in BIOS-GPT configuration requires a BIOS Boot Partition to embed its core.img in the absence of post-MBR gap in GPT partitioned systems (which is taken over by the GPT Primary Header and Primary Partition table). This partition is used by GRUB2 only in BIOS-GPT setups. No such partition type exists in case of MBR partitioning (at least not for GRUB2). This partition is also not required if the system is UEFI based, as no embedding of bootsectors takes place in that case. Syslinux does not require this partition.

For a BIOS-GPT configuration, create a 1007 KiB partition at the beginning of the disk using cgdisk or GNU Parted with no filesystem. The size of 1007 KiB will allow for the following partition to be correctly alligned at 1024 KiB. If needed, the partition can also be located somewhere else on the disk, but it should be within the first 2 TiB region. Set the partition type to 0xEF02 in gdisk, EF02 in cgdisk or set <BOOT_PART_NUM> bios_grub on in GNU Parted.

Master Boot Record (MBR) specific instructions

Usually the post-MBR gap (after the 512 byte MBR region and before the start of the 1st partition) in many MBR (or msdos disklabel) partitioned systems is 31 KiB when DOS compatibility cylinder alignment issues are satisfied in the partition table. However a post-MBR gap of about 1 to 2 MiB is recommended to provide sufficient room for embedding GRUB2's core.img (FS#24103). It is advisable to use a partitioner which supports 1 MiB partition alignment to obtain this space as well as satisfy other non-512 byte sector issues (which are unrelated to embedding of core.img).

MBR partitioning has better support in other operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows (up to Windows 7) and Haiku, than GPT partitioning. If you dual boot another operating system, consider using MBR partitioning.

A MBR disk may be convertible to GPT if there is a small amount of extra space available. See GUID Partition Table#Convert from MBR to GPT

UEFI systems

Create and Mount the UEFI System Partition

Follow Unified Extensible Firmware Interface#EFI System Partition for instructions on creating a UEFI SYSTEM PARTITION. Then mount the UEFI SYSTEM PARTITION at /boot/efi. If you have mounted the UEFISYS partition in some other mountpoint, replace /boot/efi in the below instructions with that mountpoint:

Create a <UEFI_SYSTEM_PARTITION>/EFI directory, if it does not exist:

Installation

BIOS systems

Backup Important Data

Although a GRUB(2) installation should run smoothly, it is strongly recommended to keep the GRUB Legacy files before installing grub-bios.

Backup the MBR which contains the boot code and partition table (Replace /dev/sdX with your actual disk path)

Only 446 bytes of the MBR contain boot code, the next 64 contain the partition table. If you do not want to overwrite your partition table when restoring, it is strongly advised to backup only the MBR boot code:

If unable to install GRUB2 correctly, see #Restore GRUB Legacy.

Install grub-bios package

The GRUB(2) packages can be installed with pacman (and will replace grub-legacy or grub, if it is installed):

Install grub-bios boot files

There are 3 ways to install GRUB(2) boot files in BIOS booting:

• #Install to GPT BIOS Boot Partition (recommended with GPT)
• #Install to 440-byte MBR boot code region (recommended with MBR)
• #Install to Partition or Partitionless Disk (not recommended)
• #Generate core.img alone (safest method, but requires another BIOS bootloader like grub-legacy orsyslinux to be installed to chainload /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img)

Install to 440-byte MBR boot code region

To setup grub-bios in the 440-byte Master Boot Record boot code region, populate the /boot/grubdirectory, generate the /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img file, embed it in the 31 KiB (minimum size - varies depending on partition alignment) post-MBR gap, and generate the configuration file, run:

where /dev/sda is the destination of the installation (in this case the MBR of the first SATA disk). If you useLVM for your /boot, you can install GRUB2 on multiple physical disks.

Install to GPT BIOS Boot Partition

GUID Partition Table disks do not have a reserved "boot track".  Therefore you must create a BIOS Boot Partition (0xEF02) to hold the GRUB core image.

Using GNU Parted, you can set this using a command such as the following:

If you are using gdisk, set the partition type to 0xEF02. With partitioning programs that require setting the GUID directly, it should be ‘21686148-6449-6e6f-744e656564454649’ (stored on disk as "!haHdInotNeedEFI" if interpreted as ASCII).

To setup grub-bios on a GPT disk, populate the /boot/grub directory, generate the /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img file, and embed it in the BIOS Boot Partition, run:

where /dev/sda is the destination of the installation.

Install to Partition or Partitionless Disk

To set up grub-bios to a partition boot sector, to a partitionless disk (also called superfloppy) or to a floppy disk, run (using for example /dev/sdaX as the /boot partition):

You need to use the --force option to allow usage of blocklists and should not use --grub-setup=/bin/true (which is similar to simply generating core.img).

grub-install will give out warnings like which should give you the idea of what might go wrong with this approach:

Without --force you may get the below error and grub-setup will not setup its boot code in the partition boot sector:

With --force you should get:

The reason why grub-setup does not by default allow this is because in case of partition or a partitionless disk is that grub-bios relies on embedded blocklists in the partition bootsector to locate the /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img file and the prefix dir /boot/grub. The sector locations of core.imgmay change whenever the filesystem in the partition is being altered (files copied, deleted etc.). For more info see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=728742 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=730915.

The workaround for this is to set the immutable flag on /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img (using chattr command as mentioned above) so that the sector locations of the core.img file in the disk is not altered. The immutable flag on /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img needs to be set only if grub-bios is installed to a partition boot sector or a partitionless disk, not in case of installation to MBR or simple generation of core.img without embedding any bootsector (mentioned above).

Generate core.img alone

To populate the /boot/grub directory and generate a /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img file withoutembedding any grub-bios bootsector code in the MBR, post-MBR region, or the partition bootsector, add --grub-setup=/bin/true to grub-install:

You can then chainload GRUB2's core.img from GRUB Legacy or syslinux as a Linux kernel or a multiboot kernel.

Generate GRUB2 BIOS Config file

Finally, generate a configuration for GRUB2 (this is explained in greater detail in the Configuration section):

If grub(2) complains about "no suitable mode found" while booting, go to #Correct GRUB2 No Suitable Mode Found Error.

If grub-mkconfig fails, convert your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to /boot/grub/grub.cfg using:

For example:

If you forgot to create a GRUB2 /boot/grub/grub.cfg config file and simply rebooted into GRUB2 Command Shell, type:

Boot into Arch and re-create the proper GRUB2 /boot/grub/grub.cfg config file.

Multiboot in BIOS

Boot Microsoft Windows installed in BIOS-MBR mode

Find the UUID of the NTFS filesystem of the Windows's SYSTEM PARTITION where the bootmgr and its files reside. For example, if Windows bootmgr exists at /media/SYSTEM_RESERVED/bootmgr:

For Windows Vista/7/8:

Then, add the below code to /etc/grub.d/40_custom or /boot/grub/custom.cfg and regenerate grub.cfg with grub-mkconfig as explained above to boot Windows (XP, Vista, 7 or 8) installed in BIOS-MBR mode:

For Windows Vista/7/8:

For Windows XP:

/etc/grub.d/40_custom can be used as a template to create /etc/grub.d/nn_custom.  Where nn defines the precendence, indicating the order the script is executed.  The order scripts are executed determine the placement in the grub boot menu.

UEFI systems

Hardware-Specific UEFI Examples

It is well know that different motherboard manufactures implement UEFI differently.  Users experiencing problems getting Grub/EFI to work properly are encouraged to share detailed steps for hardware-specific cases where UEFI booting does not work as described below.  In an effort to keep the parent GRUB article neat and tidy, see the GRUB EFI Examples page for these special cases.

Install grub-uefi package

GRUB(2) UEFI bootloader is available in Arch Linux only from version 1.99~rc1. To install, first detect which UEFI firmware arch you have (either x86_64 or i386).

Depending on that, install the appropriate package

For 64-bit aka x86_64 UEFI firmware:

For 32-bit aka i386 UEFI firmware:

Install grub-uefi boot files

Install to UEFI System Partition

The UEFI system partition will need to be mounted at /boot/efi/ for the GRUB(2) install script to detect it:

Install GRUB UEFI application to /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub and its modules to /boot/grub/x86_64-efi (recommended) using:

If you want to install grub(2) modules and grub.cfg at the directory /boot/efi/EFI/grub and the grubx64.efi application at /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub (ie. all the grub(2) uefi files inside the UEFISYS partition itself) use:

The --efi-directory option mentions the mountpoint of UEFI SYSTEM PARTITION , --bootloader-idmentions the name of the directory used to store the grubx64.efi file and --boot-directory mentions the directory wherein the actual modules will be installed (and into which grub.cfg should be created).

The actual paths are:

In --efi-directory=/boot/efi --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --bootloader-id=grub:

In --efi-directory=/boot/efi --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI --bootloader-id=arch_grub:

In --efi-directory=/boot/efi --boot-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub:

In --efi-directory=/boot/efi --boot-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub:

The <efi-directory>/<EFI or efi>/<bootloader-id>/grubx64.efi is an exact copy of <boot-directory>/grub/x86_64-efi/core.efi.

In all the cases the UEFI SYSTEM PARTITION should be mounted for grub-install to install grubx64.efi in it, which will be launched by the firmware (using the efibootmgr created boot entry in non-Mac systems).

If you notice carefully, there is no <device_path> option (Eg: /dev/sda) at the end of the grub-installcommand unlike the case of setting up GRUB(2) for BIOS systems. Any <device_path> provided will be ignored by the install script as UEFI bootloaders do not use MBR or Partition boot sectors at all.

You may now be able to UEFI boot your system by creating a grub.cfg file by following #Generate GRUB2 UEFI Config file and #Create GRUB2 entry in the Firmware Boot Manager.

Generate GRUB2 UEFI Config file

Finally, generate a configuration for GRUB(2) (this is explained in greater detail in the Configuration section):

If you used --boot-directory=/boot:

If you used --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI:

This is independent of the value of --bootloader-id option.

If GRUB2 complains about "no suitable mode found" while booting, try #Correct GRUB2 No Suitable Mode Found Error.

Create GRUB2 entry in the Firmware Boot Manager

As of grub-efi-x86_64 version 2.00, grub-install automatically tries to create a menu entry in the boot manager. If it doesn't, then see Beginners' Guide#GRUB for instructions to use efibootmgr to create a menu entry. However, the problem is likely to be that you haven't booted your CD/USB in UEFI mode, as inUnified Extensible Firmware Interface#Create UEFI bootable USB from ISO.

Create GRUB2 Standalone UEFI Application

It is possible to create a grubx64_standalone.efi application which has all the modules embeddded in a memdisk within the uefi application, thus removing the need for having a separate directory populated with all the GRUB2 uefi modules and other related files. This is done using the grub-mkstandalone command which is included in grub-common >= 1:1.99-6 package.

The easiest way to do this would be with the install command already mentioned before, but specifying the modules to include. For example:

The grubx64_standalone.efi file expects grub.cfg to be within its $prefix which is (memdisk)/boot/grub. The memdisk is embedded within the efi app. The grub-mkstandlone script allow passing files to be included in the memdisk image to be as the arguments to the script (in <any extra files you want to include>).

If you have the grub.cfg at /home/user/Desktop/grub.cfg, then create a temporary /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/ directory, copy the /home/user/Desktop/grub.cfg to /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/grub.cfg, cd into /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/ and run:

The reason to cd into /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/ and to pass the file path as boot/grub/grub.cfg (notice the lack of a leading slash - boot/ vs /boot/ ) is because dir1/dir2/file is included as (memdisk)/dir1/dir2/file by the grub-mkstandalone script.

If you pass /home/user/Desktop/grub.cfg the file will be included as (memdisk)/home/user/Desktop/grub.cfg. If you pass /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/grub.cfgthe file will be included as (memdisk)/home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/grub.cfg. That is the reason for cd'ing into /home/user/Desktop/boot/grub/ and passing boot/grub/grub.cfg, to include the file as (memdisk)/boot/grub/grub.cfg, which is what grub.efi expects the file to be.

You need to create an UEFI Boot Manager entry for /boot/efi/EFI/arch_grub/grubx64_standalone.efi using efibootmgr. Follow #Create GRUB2 entry in the Firmware Boot Manager.

Multiboot in UEFI

Chainload Microsoft Windows x86_64 UEFI-GPT

Find the UUID of the FAT32 filesystem in the UEFI SYSTEM PARTITION where the Windows UEFI Bootloader files reside. For example, if Windows bootmgfw.efi exists at /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi (ignore the upper-lower case differences since that is immaterial in FAT filesystem):

Then, add this code to /etc/grub.d/40_custom to chainload Windows x86_64 (Vista SP1+, 7 or 8) installed in UEFI-GPT mode:

Afterwards remake /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Configuration

You can also choose to automatically generate or manually edit grub.cfg.

Automatically generating using grub-mkconfig (Recommended)

The GRUB2 menu.lst equivalent configuration files are /etc/default/grub and /etc/grub.d/*. grub-mkconfig uses these files to generate grub.cfg. By default the script outputs to stdout. To generate a grub.cfg file run the command:

/etc/grub.d/10_linux is set to automatically add menu items for Arch linux that work out of the box, to any generated configuration. Other operating systems may need to be added manually to /etc/grub.d/40_custom or /boot/grub/custom.cfg

Additional arguments

To pass custom additional arguments to the Linux image, you can set the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable in /etc/default/grub.

For example, use GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/sdaX" where sdaX is your swap partition to enable resume after hibernation.

You can also use GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/disk/by-uuid/${swap_uuid}", where ${swap_uuid}is the UUID of your swap partition.

Multiple entries are separated by spaces within the double quotes.  So, for users who want both resume and systemd it would look like this:GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/sdaX init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd"

See Kernel parameters for more info.

Manually creating grub.cfg

A basic GRUB config file uses the following options

• (hdX,Y) is the partition Y on disk X, partition numbers starting at 1, disk numbers starting at 0
• set default=N is the default boot entry that is chosen after timeout for user action
• set timeout=M is the time M to wait in seconds for a user selection before default is booted
• menuentry "title" {entry options} is a boot entry titled title
• set root=(hdX,Y) sets the boot partition, where the kernel and GRUB modules are stored (boot need not be a separate partition, and may simply be a directory under the "root" partition (/)

An example configuration:

Dual-booting

Using grub-mkconfig

The best way to add other entries is editing the /etc/grub.d/40_custom or /boot/grub/custom.cfg . The entries in this file will be automatically added when running grub-mkconfig.After adding the new lines, run:

to generate an updated grub.cfg.

With GNU/Linux

Assuming that the other distro is on partition sda2:

With FreeBSD

Requires that FreeBSD is installed on a single partition with UFS. Assuming it is installed on sda4:

With Windows

This assumes that your Windows partition is sda3. Remember you need to point set root and chainloader to the system reserve partition that windows made when it installed, not the actual partition windows is on. This example works if your system reserve partition is sda3.

If the Windows bootloader is on an entirely different hard drive than GRUB, it may be necessary to trick Windows into believing that it is the first hard drive. This was possible with drivemap. Assuming GRUB is on hd0 and Windows is on hd2, you need to add the following after set root:

With Windows via EasyBCD and NeoGRUB

Since EasyBCD's NeoGRUB currently does not understand the GRUB2 menu format, chainload to it by replacing the contents of your C:\NST\menu.lst file with lines similar to the following:

Visual Configuration

In GRUB2 it is possible, by default, to change the look of the menu. Make sure to initialize, if not done already, GRUB2 graphical terminal, gfxterm, with proper video mode, gfxmode, in GRUB2. This can be seen in the section #Correct_GRUB2_No_Suitable_Mode_Found_Error. This video mode is passed by GRUB2 to the linux kernel via 'gfxpayload' so any visual configurations need this mode in order to be in effect.

Setting the framebuffer resolution

GRUB2 can set the framebuffer for both GRUB2 itself and the kernel. The old vga= way is deprecated. The preferred method is editing /etc/default/grub as the following sample:

To generate the changes, run:

The gfxpayload property will make sure the kernel keeps the resolution.

If this method does not work for you, the deprecated vga= method will still work. Justadd it next to the "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=" line in /etc/default/grubfor eg: "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash vga=792" will give you a 1024x768 resolution.

You can choose one of these resolutions: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1920×1200

915resolution hack

Some times for Intel graphic adapters neither # hwinfo --framebuffer nor vbeinfo will show you the desired resolution. In this case you can use 915resolution hack. This hack will temporarily modify video BIOS and add needed resolution. See 915resolution's home page

In the following I will proceed with the example for my system. Please adjust the recipe for your needs. First you need to find a video mode which will be modified later. For that, run 915resolution in GRUB2 command shell:

The output will be something like:

Next, our purpose is to overwrite mode 30. (You can choose what ever mode you want.) In the file /etc/grub.d/00_header just before the set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE} line insert:

Here we are overwriting the mode 30 with 1440x900 resolution. Lastly we need to set GRUB_GFXMODE as described earlier, regenerate GRUB2 configuration file and reboot to test changes:

Background image and bitmap fonts

GRUB2 comes with support for background images and bitmap fonts in pf2 format. The unifont font is included in the grub-common package under the filename unicode.pf2, or, as only ASCII characters under the name ascii.pf2.

Image formats supported include tga, png and jpeg, providing the correct modules are loaded. The maximum supported resolution depends on your hardware.

Make sure you have set up the proper framebuffer resolution.

Edit /etc/default/grub like this:

To generate the changes and add the information into grub.cfg, run:

If adding the splash image was successful, the user will see "Found background image..." in the terminal as the command is executed. If this phrase is not seen, the image information was probably not incorporated into the grub.cfg file.

If the image is not displayed, check:

• The path and the filename in /etc/default/grub are correct.
• The image is of the proper size and format (tga, png, 8-bit jpg).
• The image was saved in the RGB mode, and is not indexed.
• The console mode is not enabled in /etc/default/grub.
• The command grub-mkconfig must be executed to place the background image information into the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file.

Theme

Here is an example for configuring Starfield theme which was included in GRUB2 package.

Edit /etc/default/grub

Generate the changes:

If configuring the theme was successful, you'll see Found theme: /usr/share/grub/themes/starfield/theme.txt in the terminal.Your splash image will usually not be displayed when using a theme.

Menu colors

You can set the menu colors in GRUB2. The available colors for GRUB2 can be found in the GRUB Manual.Here is an example:

Edit /etc/default/grub:

Generate the changes:

Hidden menu

One of the unique features of GRUB2 is hiding/skipping the menu and showing it by holding Esc when needed. You can also adjust whether you want to see the timeout counter.

Edit /etc/default/grub as you wish. Here is an example where the comments from the beginning of the two lines have been removed to enable the feature, the timeout has been set to five seconds and to be shown to the user:

and run:

Disable framebuffer

Users who use NVIDIA proprietary driver might wish to disable GRUB2's framebuffer as it can cause problems with the binary driver.

To disable framebuffer, edit /etc/default/grub and uncomment the following line:

and run:

Another option if you want to keep the framebuffer in GRUB2 is to revert to text mode just before starting the kernel. To do that modify the variable in /etc/default/grub:

and rebuild the configuration as before.

Other Options

LVM

If you use LVM for your /boot, add the following before menuentry lines:

and specify your root in the menuentry as:

Example:

RAID

GRUB2 provides convenient handling of RAID volumes. You need to add insmod mdraid which allows you to address the volume natively. For example, /dev/md0 becomes:

whereas a partitioned RAID volume (e.g. /dev/md0p1) becomes:

Persistent block device naming

One naming scheme for Persistent block device naming is the use of globally unique UUIDs to detect partitions instead of the "old" /dev/sd*. Advantages are covered up in the above linked article.

Persistent naming via filesystem UUIDs are used by default in GRUB2.

Whether to use UUIDs is controlled by an option in /etc/default/grub:

Either way, do not forget to generate the changes:

Using Labels

It is possible to use labels, human-readable strings attached to filesystems, by using the --label option to search. First of all, label your existing partition:

Then, add an entry using labels. An example of this:

Recall previous entry

GRUB2 can remember the last entry you booted from and use this as the default entry to boot from next time. This is useful if you have multiple kernels (i.e., the current Arch one and the LTS kernel as a fallback option) or operating systems. To do this, edit /etc/default/grub and change the setting of GRUB_DEFAULT:

This ensures that GRUB will default to the saved entry. To enable saving the selected entry, add the following line to /etc/default/grub:

Security

If you want to secure GRUB2 so it is not possible for anyone to change boot parameters or use the command line, you can add a user/password combination to GRUB2's configuration files. To do this, run the command grub-mkpasswd-pbkdf2. Enter a password and confirm it. The output will look like this:

Then, add the following to /etc/grub.d/00_header:

where <password> is the string generated by grub-mkpasswd_pbkdf2.

Regenerate your configuration file. Your GRUB2 command line, boot parameters and all boot entries are now protected.

This can be relaxed and further customized with more users as described in the "Security" part of the GRUB manual.

Root Encryption

To let GRUB2 automatically add the kernel parameters for root encryption,add cryptdevice=/dev/yourdevice:label to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in /etc/default/grub.

Example with root mapped to /dev/mapper/root:

Also, disable the usage of UUIDs for the rootfs:

Regenerate the configuration.

Boot non-default entry only once

The command grub-reboot is very helpful to boot another entry than the default only once. GRUB2 loads the entry passed in the first command line argument, when the system is rebooted the next time. Most importantly GRUB2 returns to loading the default entry for all future booting. Changing the configuration file or selecting an entry in the GRUB2 menu is not necessary.

Booting an ISO Directly From GRUB2

Edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom or /boot/grub/custom.cfg to add an entry for the target ISO. When finished, update the GRUB menu as with the usual grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg (as root).

Arch ISO

Example using x86_64

Example using i686

Ubuntu ISO

Other ISOs

Other working configurations from link Source.

Using the command shell

Since the MBR is too small to store all GRUB2 modules, only the menu and a few basic commands reside there. The majority of GRUB2 functionality remains in modules in /boot/grub, which are inserted as needed. In error conditions (e.g. if the partition layout changes) GRUB2 may fail to boot. When this happens, a command shell may appear.

GRUB2 offers multiple shells/prompts. If there is a problem reading the menu but the bootloader is able to find the disk, you will likely be dropped to the "normal" shell:

If there is a more serious problem (e.g. GRUB cannot find required files), you may instead be dropped to the "rescue" shell:

The rescue shell is a restricted subset of the normal shell, offering much less functionality. If dumped to the rescue shell, first try inserting the "normal" module, then starting the "normal" shell:

Pager support

GRUB2 supports pager for reading commands that provide long output (like the help command). This works only in normal shell mode and not in rescue mode. To enable pager, in GRUB2 command shell type:

GUI configuration tools

Following package may be installed from AUR

• grub-customizer (requires gettext gksu gtkmm hicolor-icon-theme openssl)

  Customize the bootloader (GRUB2 or BURG)

• grub2-editor (requires kdelibs)

  A KDE4 control module for configuring the GRUB2 bootloader

• kcm-grub2 (requires kdelibs python2-qt kdebindings-python)

  This Kcm module manages the most common settings of Grub2.

• startupmanager (requires gnome-python imagemagick yelp python2 xorg-xrandr)

  GUI app for changing the settings of GRUB, GRUB2, Usplash and Splashy

parttool for hide/unhide

If you have a Windows 9x paradigm with hidden C:\ disks GRUB can hide/unhide it using parttool. For example, to boot the third C:\ disk of three Windows 9x installations on the CLI enter the CLI and:

Using the rescue console

See #Using the command shell first. If unable to activate the standard shell, one possible solution is to boot using a live CD or some other rescue disk to correct configuration errors and reinstall GRUB. However, such a boot disk is not always available (nor necessary); the rescue console is surprisingly robust.

The available commands in GRUB rescue include insmod, ls, set, and unset. This example uses setand insmod. set modifies variables and insmod inserts new modules to add functionality.

Before starting, the user must know the location of their /boot partition (be it a separate partition, or a subdirectory under their root):

where X is the physical drive number and Y is the partition number.

To expand console capabilities, insert the linux module:

This introduces the linux and initrd commands, which should be familiar (see #Configuration).

An example, booting Arch Linux:

With a separate boot partition, again change the lines accordingly:

After successfully booting the Arch Linux installation, users can correct grub.cfg as needed and then reinstall GRUB2.

to reinstall GRUB2 and fix the problem completely, changing /dev/sda if needed. See #Bootloader installation for details.

Combining the use of UUIDs and basic scripting

If you like the idea of using UUIDs to avoid unreliable BIOS mappings or are struggling with GRUB's syntax, here is an example boot menu item that uses UUIDs and a small script to direct GRUB to the proper disk partitions for your system. All you need to do is replace the UUIDs in the sample with the correct UUIDs for your system. The example applies to a system with a boot and root partition. You will obviously need to modify the GRUB configuration if you have additional partitions:

Troubleshooting

Any troubleshooting should be added here.

Intel BIOS not booting GPT

Some Intel BIOS's require at least one bootable MBR partition to be present at boot, causing GPT-partitioned boot setups to be unbootable.

This can be circumvented by using (for instance) fdisk to mark one of the GPT partitions (preferably the 1007KiB partition you've created for GRUB2 already) bootable in the MBR. This can be achieved, using fdisk, by the following commands: Start fdisk against the disk you're installing, for instance "fdisk /dev/sda", then press "a" and select the partition you wish to mark as bootable (probably #1) by pressing the corresponding number, finally press "w" to write the changes to the MBR.

Note that the bootable-marking must be done in fdisk or similar, not in GParted or others, as they will not set the bootable flag in the MBR.

More information is available here

Enable GRUB2 debug messages

Add:

to grub.cfg.

Correct GRUB2 No Suitable Mode Found Error

If you get this error when booting any menuentry:

Then you need to initialize GRUB2 graphical terminal (gfxterm) with proper video mode (gfxmode) in GRUB2. This video mode is passed by GRUB2 to the linux kernel via 'gfxpayload'. In case of UEFI systems, if the GRUB2 video mode is not initialized, no kernel boot messages will be shown in the terminal (atleast until KMS kicks in).

Copy /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 to ${GRUB2_PREFIX_DIR} (/boot/grub/ in case of BIOS and UEFI systems). If GRUB2 UEFI was installed with --boot-directory=/boot/efi/EFI set, then the directory is /boot/efi/EFI/grub/:

If /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 does not exist, install bdf-unifont, create the unifont.pf2 file and then copy it to ${GRUB2_PREFIX_DIR}:

Then, in the grub.cfg file, add the following lines to enable GRUB2 to pass the video mode correctly to the kernel, without of which you will only get a black screen (no output) but booting (actually) proceeds successfully without any system hang.

BIOS systems:

UEFI systems:

After that add the following code (common to both BIOS and UEFI):

As you can see for gfxterm (graphical terminal) to function properly, unicode.pf2 font file should exist in ${GRUB2_PREFIX_DIR}.

msdos-style error message

This error may occur when you try installing GRUB2 in a VMware container. Read more about it here. It happens when the first partition starts just after the MBR (block 63), without the usual space of 1 MiB (2048 blocks) before the first partition. Read #Master Boot Record (MBR) specific instructions

UEFI GRUB2 drops to shell

If GRUB loads but drops you into the rescue shell with no errors, it may be because of a missing or misplaced grub.cfg. This will happen if GRUB2 UEFI was installed with --boot-directory and grub.cfg is missing OR if the partition number of the boot partition changed (which is hard-coded into the grubx64.efifile).

UEFI GRUB2 not loaded

In some cases the EFI may fail to load GRUB correctly. Provided everything is set up correctly, the output of:

might look something like this:

If everything works correctly, the EFI would now automatically load GRUB.

If the screen only goes black for a second and the next boot option is tried afterwards, according to this post, moving GRUB to the partition root can help. The boot option has to be deleted and recreated afterwards. The entry for GRUB should look like this then:

Invalid signature

If trying to boot Windows results in an "invalid signature" error, e.g. after reconfiguring partitions or adding additional hard drives, (re)move GRUB's device configuration and let it reconfigure:

grub-mkconfig should now mention all found boot options, including Windows. If it works, remove /boot/grub/device.map-old.

Boot freezes

If booting gets stuck without any error message after grub2 loading the kernel and the initial ramdisk, try removing the add_efi_memmap kernel parameter.

Restore GRUB Legacy

• Move GRUB2 files out of the way:

• Copy GRUB Legacy back to /boot:

• Replace MBR and next 62 sectors of sda with backed up copy

A safer way is to restore only the MBR boot code use:

References

1. Official GRUB2 Manual - https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html
2. Ubuntu wiki page for GRUB2 - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
3. GRUB2 wiki page describing steps to compile for UEFI systems -https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
4. Wikipedia's page on BIOS Boot partition

External Links

1. A Linux Bash Shell script to compile and install GRUB(2) for BIOS from BZR Source
2. A Linux Bash Shell script to compile and install GRUB(2) for UEFI from BZR Source