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
MENU.LUA(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual MENU.LUA(8)

menu.luabootloader dynamic menu module

menu.lua contains the main functionality required to build a dynamic menu system. It also contains definitions for the built-in menus, some of which are influenced by loader(8) environment variables.

Before hooking into the functionality provided by menu.lua, it must be included with a statement such as the following:

local menu = require("menu")

Menus are represented in menu.lua as a table. That table contain an entries key.

If the value of the entries key is itself a table, then each value in this table defines a single entry in this menu. See MENU ITEM DEFINITIONS for the structure of each entry.

entries may also be a function. This function must return a table, each value of which defines a single entry in this menu. See MENU ITEM DEFINITIONS.

The following keys may be defined for a menu item:

The type of this menu entry. See MENU ITEM TYPES.
A unique string id for this carousel. A carousel is a menu entry that rotates through a selection of items. Used for storage of the carousel's current setting.
A lambda that returns true if this menu item should be visible and false if it should not be visible.
A table (or a lambda that returns a table) of the possible choices for this carousel.
A string (or a lambda that returns a string) containing the current name of this item.
The function executed when this entry is selected. Every type except for core.MENU_SEPARATOR may have a func.
The submenu menu definition to draw when this entry is selected.
A table of case-sensitive aliases for this menu entry. All menu entries that can be selected may have any number of alias entries.

entry_type is the only required key for every entry type. name is required for all entry types except for core.MENU_SEPARATOR.

The menu item type constants are defined in core.lua(8). The following types are available:

Return to the parent menu. If the current menu is the default menu, menu.lua will exit the menu and begin the autoboot sequence (if applicable). This type of menu entry may execute func, when selected, and has a name.
A normal menu entry that executes func when selected, and has a name.
A menu entry that serves as a separator. It may have a name.
A menu entry that opens submenu when selected. It may have a name.
A menu entry that rotates through items like a carousel. func is executed when selected, and the callback is passed the choice index, name of the current choice, and the table of choices.

The following menus are exported by menu.lua:

The default menu to draw. Set to menu.welcome by default.
The welcome menu. Contains single and multi user boot options, as well as entries to access other menus.
The "Boot Options" menu.
The "Boot Environments" menu. This menu is only visible if the system is booted on a ZFS partition and more than one boot environment was detected at boot.

To replace the default boot menu with a simple boot menu:

local core = require("core")
local menu = require("menu")

menu.default = {
	entries = {
		{
			entry_type = core.MENU_ENTRY,
			name = "Boot",
			func = core.boot,
		},
		{
			entry_type = core.MENU_CAROUSEL_ENTRY,
			carousel_id = "unique_boot_entry_name",
			items = {"NO", "YES"},
			name = function(_, choice, _)
				return "Option: " .. choice
			end,
			func = function(_, _, _)
				loader.setenv("some_envvar", "some_value")
			end,
		},
	},
}

To add another option to the welcome menu:

local core = require("core")
local menu = require("menu")

local my_entry = {
	entry_type = core.MENU_ENTRY,
	name = "Fancy Boot",
	func = core.boot,
},

local stock_entries = menu.welcome.entries
function menu.welcome.entries()
	local ents = stock_entries()
	ents[#ents + 1] = my_entry
	return ents
end

To create a vendor submenu or other vendor menu option, override menu.welcome.all_entires.vendor like so:

local core = require("core")
local menu = require("menu")

-- Fill in with vendor specific entries
local vendor_options = {
	entries = {
	...
	},
}

local welcome_entries = menu.welcome.all_entries
welcome_entries.vendor = {
        entry_type = core.MENU_SUBMENU,
        name = color.highlight("V") .. "endor Options",
        submenu = vendor_options,
        alias = {"v", "V"},
	visible = function()
		return true
	end,
}
In the above example, vendor_options is a local variable that defines the vendor submenu.

To add an additional option, change the menu.boot_options.entries array. The following illustrates this concept:

-- This is a silly example that rotates local_option through the values
-- 0 to 4.  local_option would still need to be used elsewhere.
local local_option = 0

-- The `entries` of a menu may either be a table or a function.  In this
-- example we're augmenting a menu that just has a static table, but if we
-- wanted to be more robust then we would need to instead check the type
-- of `stock_options` here to determine our next move.
--
-- If `entries` is a table, then the stock menu system won't be changing it
-- so we can just add our menu option as we do below.
--
-- If `entries` is a function, then we would need to provide a new function to
-- replace `entries` that does a core.deepCopyTable() of the result and adds
-- the below item to it.  The deep copy is necessary to avoid duplicating our
-- new menu item and allowing the menu to alter its behavior however it pleases.
local stock_options = menu.boot_options.entries
stock_options[#stock_options + 1] = {
	entry_type = core.MENU_ENTRY,
	name = function()
		return color.highlight('L') ..
		    "ocal Option     : " .. local_option
	end,
	func = function()
		local_option = (local_option + 1) % 5
	end,
	alias= {"l", "L"}
}

loader.conf(5), core.lua(8), loader(8)

The menu.lua file first appeared in FreeBSD 12.0.

The menu.lua file was originally written by Pedro Souza <pedrosouza@FreeBSD.org>. Later work and this manual page was done by
Kyle Evans <kevans@FreeBSD.org>.

March 29, 2025 FreeBSD 14.3-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.