Kernel parameters
There are three ways to pass options to the kernel and thus control its behaviour:
- When building the kernel. See Kernel#Compilation for details.
- When starting the kernel (usually, when invoked from a boot loader).
- At runtime (through the files in
/proc
and/sys
). See sysctl for details.
This page explains in more detail the second method and shows a list of the most used kernel parameters in Arch Linux.
Not all parameters are always available. Most are associated with subsystems and work only if the kernel is configured with those subsystems built in. They also depend on the presence of the hardware they are associated with.
Parameters either have the format parameter
or parameter=value
.
Contents
Configuration
- You can check the parameters your system was booted up with by running
cat /proc/cmdline
and see if it includes your changes. - The Arch Linux installation medium uses Syslinux for BIOS systems, and systemd-boot for UEFI systems.
Kernel parameters can be set either temporarily by editing the boot entry in the boot loader's boot selection menu, or by modifying the boot loader's configuration file.
The following examples add the quiet
and splash
parameters to Syslinux, systemd-boot, GRUB, GRUB Legacy, LILO, and rEFInd.
Syslinux
- Press
Tab
when the menu shows up and add them at the end of the string:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 initrd=/boot/initramfs-linux.img quiet splash
- Press
Enter
to boot with these parameters.
- To make the change persistent after reboot, edit
/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
and add them to theAPPEND
line:
APPEND root=/dev/sda3 quiet splash
For more information on configuring Syslinux, see the Syslinux article.
systemd-boot
- Press
e
when the menu appears and add the parameters to the end of the string:
initrd=\initramfs-linux.img root=/dev/sda2 quiet splash
- Press
Enter
to boot with these parameters.
- If you have not set a value for menu timeout, you will need to hold
Space
while booting for the systemd-boot menu to appear. - If you cannot edit the parameters from the boot menu, you may need to edit
/boot/loader/loader.conf
and addeditor 1
to enable editing.
- To make the change persistent after reboot, edit
/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
(assuming you set up your EFI system partition) and add them to theoptions
line:
options root=/dev/sda2 quiet splash
For more information on configuring systemd-boot, see the systemd-boot article.
GRUB
- Press
e
when the menu shows up and add them on thelinux
line:
linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=978e3e81-8048-4ae1-8a06-aa727458e8ff quiet splash
- Press
Ctrl+x
to boot with these parameters.
- To make the change persistent after reboot, you could manually edit
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
with the exact line from above, but the best practice is to:
- Edit
/etc/default/grub
and append your kernel options to theGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
- And then automatically re-generate the
grub.cfg
file with:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
For more information on configuring GRUB, see the GRUB article.
GRUB Legacy
- Press
e
when the menu shows up and add them on thekernel
line:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 quiet splash
- Press
b
to boot with these parameters.
- To make the change persistent after reboot, edit
/boot/grub/menu.lst
and add them to thekernel
line, exactly like above.
For more information on configuring GRUB Legacy, see the GRUB Legacy article.
LILO
- Add them to
/etc/lilo.conf
:
image=/boot/vmlinuz-linux ... quiet splash
For more information on configuring LILO, see the LILO article.
rEFInd
- Press
+
,F2
, orInsert
on the desired menu entry and press it again on the submenu entry. Add kernel parameters at the end of the string:
root=PARTUUID=978e3e81-8048-4ae1-8a06-aa727458e8ff rw initrd=\boot\initramfs-linux.img quiet splash
- Press
Enter
to boot with these parameters.
- To make the change persistent after reboot, edit
/boot/refind_linux.conf
and append them to all/required lines, for example
"Boot using default options" "root=PARTUUID=978e3e81-8048-4ae1-8a06-aa727458e8ff rw quiet splash"
- If you have disabled auto-detection of OSes in rEFInd and are defining OS stanzas instead in
esp/EFI/refind/refind.conf
to load your OSes, you can edit it like:
menuentry "Arch Linux" { ... options "root=PARTUUID=978e3e81-8048-4ae1-8a06-aa727458e8ff rw quiet splash" ... }
For more information on configuring rEFInd, see the rEFInd article.
EFISTUB
See EFISTUB#Using UEFI directly.
Hijacking cmdline
Even without access to your bootloader it is possible to change your kernel parameters to enable debugging (if you have root access). This can be accomplished by overwriting /proc/cmdline
which stores the kernel parameters. However /proc/cmdline
is not writable even as root, so this hack is accomplished by using a bind mount to mask the path.
First create a file containing the desired kernel parameters
/root/cmdline
root=/dev/disk/by-label/ROOT ro console=tty1 logo.nologo debug
Then use a bind mount to overwrite the parameters
# mount -n --bind -o ro /root/cmdline /proc/cmdline
The -n
option skips adding the mount to /etc/mtab
, so it will work even if root is mounted read-only. You can cat /proc/cmdline
to confirm that your change was successful.
Parameter list
This list is not comprehensive. For a complete list of all options, please see the kernel documentation.
parameter | Description |
---|---|
root= | Root filesystem. See init/do_mounts.c for supported device name formats. |
rootflags= | Root filesystem mount options. |
ro | Mount root device read-only on boot (default1). |
rw | Mount root device read-write on boot. |
initrd= | Specify the location of the initial ramdisk. |
init= | Run specified binary instead of /sbin/init as init process. The systemd-sysvcompat package symlinks /sbin/init to /usr/lib/systemd/systemd to use systemd.
|
init=/bin/sh | Boot to shell. |
systemd.unit= | Boot to a specified target. |
resume= | Specify a swap device to use when waking from hibernation. |
nomodeset | Disable Kernel mode setting. |
zswap.enabled | Enable Zswap. |
panic= | Time before automatic reboot on kernel panic. |
debug | Enable kernel debugging (events log level). |
mem= | Force usage of a specific amount of memory to be used. |
maxcpus= | Maximum number of processors that an SMP kernel will bring up during bootup. |
selinux= | Disable or enable SELinux at boot time. |
netdev= | Network devices parameters. |
video= | Override framebuffer video defaults. |
1 mkinitcpio uses ro
as default value when neither rw
or ro
is set by the boot loader. Boot loaders may set the value to use, for example GRUB uses rw
by default (see FS#36275 as a reference).