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USAGE.md

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Usage

UEFI

The BOOT*.EFI files are valid EFI applications that can be simply copied to the /EFI/BOOT directory of a FAT formatted EFI system partition. These files can be installed there and coexist with a BIOS installation of Limine (see below) so that the disk will be bootable on both BIOS and UEFI systems.

The boot device must contain the limine.conf files in either the root, limine, boot, or boot/limine directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system (the ESP partition is recommended).

Secure Boot

Limine can be booted with secure boot if the executable is signed and the key used to sign it is added to the firmware's keychain. This should be done in combination with enrolling the BLAKE2B hash of the Limine config file into the Limine EFI executable image itself for verification purposes. For more information see the limine enroll-config program and the philosophy.

BIOS/MBR

In order to install Limine on a MBR device (which can just be a raw image file), run limine bios-install as such:

limine bios-install <path to device/image>

The boot device must contain the limine-bios.sys and limine.conf files in either the root, limine, boot, or boot/limine directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system.

BIOS/GPT

If using a GPT formatted device, there are 2 options one can follow for installation:

  • Specifying a dedicated stage 2 partition.
  • Letting limine bios-install attempt to embed stage 2 within GPT structures.

In case one wants to specify a stage 2 partition, create a partition on the GPT device of at least 32KiB in size, and pass the 1-based number of the partition to limine bios-install as a second argument; such as:

limine bios-install <path to device/image> <1-based stage 2 partition number>

In case one wants to let limine bios-install embed stage 2 within GPT's structures, simply omit the partition number, and invoke limine bios-install the same as one would do for an MBR partitioned device.

The boot device must contain the limine-bios.sys and limine.conf files in either the root, limine, boot, or boot/limine directory of one of the partitions, formatted with a supported file system.

BIOS/UEFI hybrid ISO creation

In order to create a hybrid ISO with Limine, place the limine-uefi-cd.bin, limine-bios-cd.bin, limine-bios.sys, and limine.conf files into a directory which will serve as the root of the created ISO. (limine-bios.sys and limine.conf must either be in the root, limine, boot, or boot/limine directory; limine-uefi-cd.bin and limine-bios-cd.bin can reside anywhere).

After that, create a <ISO root directory>/EFI/BOOT directory and copy the relevant Limine EFI executables over (such as BOOTX64.EFI).

Place any other file you want to be on the final ISO in said directory, then run:

xorriso -as mkisofs -R -r -J -b <relative path of limine-bios-cd.bin> \
        -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -hfsplus \
        -apm-block-size 2048 --efi-boot <relative path of limine-uefi-cd.bin> \
        -efi-boot-part --efi-boot-image --protective-msdos-label \
        <root directory> -o image.iso

Note: xorriso is required.

And do not forget to also run limine bios-install on the generated image:

limine bios-install image.iso

<relative path of limine-bios-cd.bin> is the relative path of limine-bios-cd.bin inside the root directory. For example, if it was copied in <root directory>/boot/limine-bios-cd.bin, it would be boot/limine-bios-cd.bin.

<relative path of limine-uefi-cd.bin> is the relative path of limine-uefi-cd.bin inside the root directory. For example, if it was copied in <root directory>/boot/limine-uefi-cd.bin, it would be boot/limine-uefi-cd.bin.

BIOS/PXE boot

The limine-bios-pxe.bin binary is a valid PXE boot image. In order to boot Limine from PXE it is necessary to setup a DHCP server with support for PXE booting. This can either be accomplished using a single DHCP server or your existing DHCP server and a proxy DHCP server such as dnsmasq.

limine.conf and limine-bios.sys are expected to be on the server used for boot.

UEFI/PXE boot

The BOOT*.EFI files are compatible with UEFI PXE. The steps needed to boot Limine are the same as with BIOS PXE, except that the limine-bios.sys file is not needed on the server.

Configuration

The limine.conf file contains Limine's configuration.

More info on the format of limine.conf can be found in CONFIG.md.