GSP
Quick Navigator

Search Site

Unix VPS
A - Starter
B - Basic
C - Preferred
D - Commercial
MPS - Dedicated
Previous VPSs
* Sign Up! *

Support
Contact Us
Online Help
Handbooks
Domain Status
Man Pages

FAQ
Virtual Servers
Pricing
Billing
Technical

Network
Facilities
Connectivity
Topology Map

Miscellaneous
Server Agreement
Year 2038
Credits
 

USA Flag

 

 

Man Pages
LOADERUPDATE(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual LOADERUPDATE(8)

loaderupdate
update boot loaders

loaderupdate [-d destdir] [-L efilabel] [-b bootloader] [-e efiloader] [-p pmbr] [-Dn] device ...

loaderupdate [-d destdir] [-L efilabel] [-b bootloader] [-e efiloader] [-p pmbr] [-Dn] -a

loaderupdate [-d destdir] [-L efilabel] [-b bootloader] [-e efiloader] [-p pmbr] [-n] -P [-a | device ...]

loaderupdate -h

The loaderupdate script updates the boot loaders of a given set of bootable devices according to a given boot environment.

The boot environment must contain a system kernel under /boot/kernel/kernel as well as the required loader images. The defaults of which can be overridden by the -b, -e and -p parameters. Which boot loaders are used by default also depends on the file system of the boot environment.

The default boot environment / can be overridden by providing the path to the current mountpoint of a different boot environment via the DESTDIR environment variable, or the -d parameter.

The BOOTSTRAPPING section of gpart(8) provides a good overview of the boot process.

The following argument types can be given:
destdir
The path of the mountpoint for the boot environment containing the kernel and boot loader images. The default boot environment is /.
efilabel
Formatting string for EFI boot manager entry labels, defaults to:
“{version} {arch} [{pdev}]”

The following substitutions are available:

{dev}
The device containing the partition
{pdev}
The device of the efi partition
{index}
The index of the efi partition
{version}
The kernel version
{arch}
The kernel architecture

Supports the formatting style described by bprintf(1).

bootloader
The boot loader image to use for freebsd-boot partitions. The default is either /boot/gptboot or /boot/gptzfsboot, depending on the file system containing the boot environment.
efiloader
The boot loader image to use for efi partitions, the default is /boot/loader.efi, the efi variant of loader(8).
pmbr
The protective MBR image installed in front of the GUID Partition Table. The protective MBR chain-boots the freebsd-boot partition on systems booting in legacy BIOS mode. This is only installed if a freebsd-boot partition is present. The default protective MBR image is /boot/pmbr.
device
The hard disk device to update.

The following options are available:
--all
Selects all available devices.
--bootloader bootloader
Override the default freebsd-boot loader image.
--dry-run
Instead of updating the boot loaders just show the commands that would be run. In combination with -q this does not print anything apart from errors, which is useful to run all checks performed by loaderupdate without committing any changes.
--destdir destdir
Override the default boot environment.
--efiloader efiloader
Override the default efi loader image.
--label efilabel
Set a custom label for EFI boot manager entries.
--noefi
Do not create EFI boot manager entries via the efibootmgr(8) command. This is useful when preparing a disk for another system.
--dump
Instead of performing boot loader updates print a summary of the boot environment and selected devices.
--pmbr pmbr
Override the default protective MBR image.
--quiet
Do not print the commands that are run. This flag does not suppress the output from those commands.

Overrides the default boot environment.

/boot/kernel/kernel
Used to determine the version, architecture and OS to boot by extracting the version, machine and ostype symbols from the kernel binary.
/boot/gptboot
The freebsd-boot partition image for booting from UFS, see gptboot(8).
/boot/gptzfsboot
The freebsd-boot partition image for booting from ZFS, see gptboot(8).
/boot/loader.efi
The default efi variant of loader(8). Capable of booting from UFS and Zfs, alternatives include /boot/loader_4th.efi, /boot/loader_lua.efi and /boot/loader_simp.efi.
/boot/pmbr
The default protective MBR image.

The following is a list of all anticipated exit codes:
EOK=0
Command completed successfully.
ESIGNAL=1
Interrupted by signal.
EFAIL=2
Generic application logic error.
EPARAM=3
Invalid or conflicting arguments were supplied.
ENODEVICE=4
No or inaccessible devices selected.
EDESTDIR=5
The destdir is not a directory.
ENOKERNEL=6
Cannot access kernel in destdir.
EEFILABEL=7
Corrupt label formatting, see efilabel in the Arguments section.
ESCHEME=8
None or unsupported partitioning scheme detected in device.
ENOPARTS=9
Neither a freebsd-boot nor an efi boot partition was found on a selected device.
EEFIBOOTMGR=10
Failed to run efibootmgr(8).
ELOADER=11
Cannot read a required loader image.
EMOUNT=12
Failed to mount the efi boot partition.
ECMD=13
Failed to execute a command during the update procedure.

Run gpart(8) for a list of devices:
gpart show

Inspect the boot environment and the desired device:

loaderupdate -P nvd0

Review the commands to execute:

loaderupdate -D nvd0

Finally update the loaders for the device:

loaderupdate nvd0

bprintf(1), efibootmgr(8), gpart(8), gptboot(8), gptzfsboot(8), loader(8)

The loaderupdate command was added with the bsda2-0.4.0 release.

Dominic Fandrey <freebsd@k4m1.org>

Only supports GUID Partition Table formatted devices.
17 January, 2021 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE

Search for    or go to Top of page |  Section 8 |  Main Index

Powered by GSP Visit the GSP FreeBSD Man Page Interface.
Output converted with ManDoc.