25.5. Customizing the GRUB 2 Configuration File

GRUB 2 scripts search the user's computer and build a boot menu based on what operating systems the scripts find. To reflect the latest system boot options, the boot menu is rebuilt automatically when the kernel is updated or a new kernel is added.

However, users may want to build a menu containing specific entries or to have the entries in a specific order. GRUB 2 allows basic customization of the boot menu to give users control of what actually appears on the screen.

GRUB 2 uses a series of scripts to build the menu; these are located in the /etc/grub.d/ directory. The following files are included:

00_header, which loads GRUB 2 settings from the /etc/default/grub file.
01_users, which reads the superuser password from the user.cfg file. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and 7.1, this file was only created when boot password was defined in the kickstart file during installation, and it included the defined password in plain text.
10_linux, which locates kernels in the default partition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
30_os-prober, which builds entries for operating systems found on other partitions.
40_custom, a template, which can be used to create additional menu entries.

Scripts from the /etc/grub.d/ directory are read in alphabetical order and can be therefore renamed to change the boot order of specific menu entries.

Important

With the GRUB_TIMEOUT key set to 0 in the /etc/default/grub file, GRUB 2 does not display the list of bootable kernels when the system starts up. In order to display this list when booting, press and hold any alphanumeric key when the BIOS information is displayed; GRUB 2 will present you with the GRUB 2 menu.

25.5.1. Changing the Default Boot Entry

By default, the key for the GRUB_DEFAULT directive in the /etc/default/grub file is the word saved. This instructs GRUB 2 to load the kernel specified by the saved_entry directive in the GRUB 2 environment file, located at /boot/grub2/grubenv. You can set another GRUB 2 record to be the default, using the grub2-set-default command, which will update the GRUB 2 environment file.

By default, the saved_entry value is set to the name of latest installed kernel of package type kernel. This is defined in /etc/sysconfig/kernel by the UPDATEDEFAULT and DEFAULTKERNEL directives. The file can be viewed by the root user as follows:

~]# cat /etc/sysconfig/kernel
# UPDATEDEFAULT specifies if new-kernel-pkg should make
# new kernels the default
UPDATEDEFAULT=yes

# DEFAULTKERNEL specifies the default kernel package type
DEFAULTKERNEL=kernel

The DEFAULTKERNEL directive specifies what package type will be used as the default. Installing a package of type kernel-debug will not change the default kernel while the DEFAULTKERNEL is set to package type kernel.

GRUB 2 supports using a numeric value as the key for the saved_entry directive to change the default order in which the operating systems are loaded. To specify which operating system should be loaded first, pass its number to the grub2-set-default command. For example:

~]# grub2-set-default 2

Note that the position of a menu entry in the list is denoted by a number starting with zero; therefore, in the example above, the third entry will be loaded. This value will be overwritten by the name of the next kernel to be installed.

To force a system to always use a particular menu entry, use the menu entry name as the key to the GRUB_DEFAULT directive in the /etc/default/grub file. To list the available menu entries, run the following command as root:

~]# awk -F\' '$1=="menuentry " {print $2}' /etc/grub2.cfg

The file name /etc/grub2.cfg is a symbolic link to the grub.cfg file, whose location is architecture dependent. For reliability reasons, the symbolic link is not used in other examples in this chapter. It is better to use absolute paths when writing to a file, especially when repairing a system.

Changes to /etc/default/grub require rebuilding the grub.cfg file as follows:

On BIOS-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
```
On UEFI-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
```

25.5.2. Editing a Menu Entry

If required to prepare a new GRUB 2 file with different parameters, edit the values of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX key in the /etc/default/grub file. Note that you can specify multiple parameters for the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX key, similarly to adding the parameters in the GRUB 2 boot menu. For example:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8"

Where console=tty0 is the first virtual terminal and console=ttyS0 is the serial terminal to be used.

Changes to /etc/default/grub require rebuilding the grub.cfg file as follows:

On BIOS-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
```
On UEFI-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
```

25.5.3. Adding a new Entry

When executing the grub2-mkconfig command, GRUB 2 searches for Linux kernels and other operating systems based on the files located in the /etc/grub.d/ directory. The /etc/grub.d/10_linux script searches for installed Linux kernels on the same partition. The /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober script searches for other operating systems. Menu entries are also automatically added to the boot menu when updating the kernel.

The 40_custom file located in the /etc/grub.d/ directory is a template for custom entries and looks as follows:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

This file can be edited or copied. Note that as a minimum, a valid menu entry must include at least the following:

menuentry "<Title>"{
<Data>
}

25.5.4. Creating a Custom Menu

If you do not want menu entries to be updated automatically, you can create a custom menu.

Important

Before proceeding, back up the contents of the /etc/grub.d/ directory in case you need to revert the changes later.

Note

Note that modifying the /etc/default/grub file does not have any effect on creating custom menus.

On BIOS-based machines, copy the contents of /boot/grub2/grub.cfg, or, on UEFI machines, copy the contents of /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg. Put the content of the grub.cfg into the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file below the existing header lines. The executable part of the 40_custom script has to be preserved.

From the content put into the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file, only the menuentry blocks are needed to create the custom menu. The /boot/grub2/grub.cfg and /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg files might contain function specifications and other content above and below the menuentry blocks. If you put these unnecessary lines into the 40_custom file in the previous step, erase them.

This is an example of a custom 40_custom script:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry 'First custom entry' --class red --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.10.0-67.el7.x86_64-advanced-32782dd0-4b47-4d56-a740-2076ab5e5976' {
        load_video
        set gfxpayload=keep
        insmod gzio
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod xfs
        set root='hd0,msdos1'
        if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint='hd0,msdos1'  7885bba1-8aa7-4e5d-a7ad-821f4f52170a
        else
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7885bba1-8aa7-4e5d-a7ad-821f4f52170a
        fi
        linux16 /vmlinuz-3.10.0-67.el7.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/rhel-root ro rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap vconsole.keymap=us crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet LANG=en_US.UTF-8
        initrd16 /initramfs-3.10.0-67.el7.x86_64.img
}
menuentry 'Second custom entry' --class red --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-0-rescue-07f43f20a54c4ce8ada8b70d33fd001c-advanced-32782dd0-4b47-4d56-a740-2076ab5e5976' {
        load_video
        insmod gzio
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod xfs
        set root='hd0,msdos1'
        if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint='hd0,msdos1'  7885bba1-8aa7-4e5d-a7ad-821f4f52170a
        else
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7885bba1-8aa7-4e5d-a7ad-821f4f52170a
        fi
        linux16 /vmlinuz-0-rescue-07f43f20a54c4ce8ada8b70d33fd001c root=/dev/mapper/rhel-root ro rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap vconsole.keymap=us crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet
        initrd16 /initramfs-0-rescue-07f43f20a54c4ce8ada8b70d33fd001c.img
}

Remove all files from the /etc/grub.d/ directory except the following:
- 00_header,
- 40_custom,
- 01_users (if it exists),
- and README.
Alternatively, if you want to keep the files in the /etc/grub2.d/ directory, make them unexecutable by running the chmod a-x <file_name> command.
Edit, add, or remove menu entries in the 40_custom file as desired.
Rebuild the grub.cfg file by running the grub2-mkconfig -o command as follows:
- On BIOS-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
```
- On UEFI-based machines, issue the following command as root:
```
~]# grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
```

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25.5. Customizing the GRUB 2 Configuration File

25.5.1. Changing the Default Boot Entry

25.5.2. Editing a Menu Entry

25.5.3. Adding a new Entry

25.5.4. Creating a Custom Menu

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