-
General boot options
-
-
- setkmap=xx: if you don't want to be asked for the keymap, you can choose which keymap to load automatically. Replace
xx with your keymap (for example: setkmap=de for german keyboards)
- - docache: this option is very useful if you need to insert another disc in the CD drive after booting. The CD-ROM will be fully loaded into memory, and you will be able to remove the disc from the drive. The
docache option requires 400MB of memory if you want to cache everything (including the bootdisks and isolinux directories). You can add the lowmem option if you have less that 400MB of memory of to prevent these directories to be copied into memory.
- - root=xxx: the root=<device> option lets you boot an existing linux system. For example, if you have a linux gentoo installed on
/dev/sda6, you can type rescuecd root=/dev/sda6 and Gentoo Linux will be started instead of the system that is on the CD-ROM. Keep in mind that you must use a 64bits kernel if your system is made of 64bits programs. For instance, you can boot a 64bits linux system installed on /dev/sda6 with rescue64 root=/dev/sda6. From SystemRescueCd-1.0.4, this option works with LVM disks, so you can write something like rescuecd root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00. SystemRescueCd-1.0.4 and newer versions also supports root=auto, that will scan all the block devices of the computer to find a linux system. The first linux system found on the disks will be started. So with root=auto let you start the system installed from the CD-ROM in case you have problem with your boot loader or with your kernel for instance. You can have more details about that option.
- - initscript=service:action: This options allows you to automatically start/stop a service at boot time. For instance if you need the samba service to be started, you can boot with the following option:
initscript=samba:start. This does the same thing as /etc/init.d/samba start. You can use this option several times with different services. All the action that are supported by an initscript can be used. This option is available with SystemRescueCd-1.0.2 and newer.
- - backstore=xxx: SystemRescueCd-1.1.x comes with support for the backing-stores. Basically, a backing-store is a loopback filesystem which saves all the changes you can make in SystemRescueCd when you use it. In other words it allows you to save all the files which changes in SystemRescueCd while you use it, so that you keep these changes the next time you boot it. By default, sysresccd automatically scan all your removable devices (eg: usb sticks) at boot time and uses the first backing-store it finds if there is one. A backing-store is not mandatory and it the scan fails it will just store the files which change in memory. To disable the disks scan at boot time you can specify
backstore=off on the boot command line. If you want to save your backing-store file on an harddisk, you will have to boot with backstore=alldev so that it scans all devices not just removable devices. The default place for backing-stores file is any file named sysrcd.bs located at the root of a disk which is often an USB key. You can change the path by using an option such as backstore=/sysrcd/mybackstore.bs and then sysresccd will try to find a file named mybackstore.bs located in /sysrcd in any block-device (partition, USB-stick, ...). You can find more information about on the page about backing-stores.
-
-
-
Hardware, drivers and troubleshooting options
-
-
- nonet: this will disable the network auto detection at startup
-
- scandelay=x: pauses x seconds during the startup to allow slow devices to initialize. This is required when you boot an usb device. A delay of only few seconds should be enough.
-
- doxdetect: Since version 0.3.5 the auto-configuration is done in X.Org itself, and then mkxf86config is disabled by default. This option forces the system to run the mkxf86config startup script to run the hardware auto-detection from this script. Use this option if you have problems with the graphical environment configuration. This option replaces the option
noxdetect that was useful in previous versions.
- - nodetect: prevents the generic hardware auto-detection. Use this option if you have problems with the hardware auto-detection.
-
- doload=xxx: forces to load one/several modules at startup (example:
doload=3c59x)
- - noload=xxx: prevents the system to load one/several modules at startup (example:
noload=3c59x). Use this option if you have a problem when the system loads a particular module at boot time.
- - dostartx: This option will force the system to load the X.Org graphical environment at boot time. You won't have to type
startx by hand to get it.
- - forcevesa: Forces X.Org to work with the safe vesa driver instead of the best video driver detected for your video card. Use this option if you cannot get the graphical environment working with the default options.
-
- forcevesa=xxx: The
startx command will load the Xvesa server instead of Xorg, and Xvesa will use the screen resolution given as parameter (eg: 1024x768, 1280x1024x32). The forcevesa option can take a parameter from SystemRescueCd-1.0.0 and more recent.
- - all-generic-ide: In case of problems related to your hard disk, try to enable this option (eg
rescuecd all-generic-ide)
- - acpi-off / noapic / irqpool: use these options if you have any problem when the kernel boots: if it hangs on a driver or if it crashes, ...
-
- dodebug: Enables verbose messages in the linuxrc script.
-
- lowmem: Prevents non critical things to be loaded into memory (like the sshd and nfsd services)
-
- skipmount=/dev/xxx: The system mounts all the storage devices at boot time to find the sysrcd.dat file. You may not want it to mount a device, for instance if your hard disk is broken because it would crash the system. You can just boot with
skipmount=/dev/sda1 skipmount=/dev/sda2 if you want SystemRescueCd to ignore these two partitions. This boot option requires SystemRescueCd-1.0.1 or more recent.
- - nodmraid: Disable dmraid, which is the program that drives RAID disks based on cheap RAID controller built-in motherboards.
-
- nomdadm: Disable mdadm, which is the program that drives software RAID.
-
-
-
Network auto-configuration and remote access
-
-
- dodhcp: Use
dodhcp if you have a DHCP server on your network and you want the system to get a dynamic IP address at boot time.
- - ethx=ipaddr/cidr: Sets the static IP address of all the ethernet interfaces found on the system. The
/cidr extension is optional. For instance, if you use option ethx=192.168.0.1 on a machine with two ethernet adapters, both eth0 and eth1 will be configured with 192.168.0.1. You can also write something like ethx=10.0.0.1/24 (using the cidr notation) if you don't use the default netmask.
- - eth0=ipaddr/cidr: This option is similar to
ethx=ipaddr/cidr but it configures only one interface at a time. Of course, you can use the eth0=ipaddr/cidr option it for all the ethernet interfaces, not just eth0. For instance if you want to configure the network on a server that has two interfaces, you can write something like this: eth0=192.168.10.1/24 eth1=192.168.20.1. This option requires SystemRescueCd-1.0.2 or newer.
+
+
+
+ General boot options
+Press <TAB> to add additional options.
+
+- docache: causes the CD-ROM will be fully loaded into memory. A slower start but once complete, programs start faster and the CD drive will be released allowing normal access to other CDs. This requires 400MB of memory to cache everything (including the
bootdisks and isolinux directories). Add lowmem if you have less that 400MB of memory of to prevent these directories to be copied.
+
+During boot you will be prompted for the keyboard configuration, avoid this by using
+
+- setkmap=kk: which defines the keymap to load where
kk (example: setkmap=de for German keyboards)
+ - root=/dev/xdnp: the root=<device> option boots an existing linux system. For example, if you have linux Gentoo installed on
/dev/sda6, use rescuecd root=/dev/sda6 to start it. Keep in mind that you must use a 64bit kernel if your system is made of 64bit programs. This option works with LVM volumes. Use rescuecd root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00. Support is also provided for root=auto, which scans all the block devices tfor a linux system. The first linux system found will be started. So with root=auto let you start the system installed from the CD-ROM in case you have problem with your boot loader or kernel. It's also possible to specify a partition using its filesystem label or filesystem uuid. If the label of the partition where linux is installed is mylinux, then boot it using rescuecd root=LABEL=mylinux. Similarly root=UUID=b3d3bec5-997a-413e-8449-0d0ec41ccba7. See more details.
+ - initscript=service:action: This options allows start/stop a service at boot time. For instance if you need the samba service to be started, you can boot with:
initscript=samba:start. This does the same thing as /etc/init.d/samba start. Use this option multiple times for different services. All the actions that are supported by an initscript can be used.
+ - backstore=xxx: SystemRescueCd comes with support for the backing-stores. A backing-store saves all the changes you can make. so that you keep these changes the next time you boot it. By default, sysresccd automatically scan removable devices (eg: USB sticks) at boot time and uses the first backing-store it finds. A backing-store is not mandatory and it the scan fails it will store the files which change in memory. To disable the disks scan at boot time specify
backstore=off on the boot command line. If you want to save your backing-store file on an harddisk, boot with backstore=alldev to scan all devices (not just removable devices). The default location for backing-stores file is any file named sysrcd.bs located at the root of a disk which is often an USB stick. Change the path by using backstore=/sysrcd/mybackstore.bs. See backing-stores.
+ - isoloop=xxx: Grub2 (currently in development: grub-1.98) provides a new feature to boot from an ISO image which is stored from the hard disk. If you put a copy of
systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso on a partition that Grub2 can read then you can boot SystemRescueCd directly from the ISO image stored on your hard drive. This is very convenient if you frequently update SystemRescueCd and you want to boot it directly from Grub2. Grub2 knows what an ISO image is and it will load the kernel image (rescuecd/rescue64) and the initramfs (initram.igz) from the ISO into memory. It will then do its normal job and execute the kernel. The SystemRescueCd init script must then be aware that its sysrcd.dat file is in an ISO and not directly on the partition. For that reason, this isoloop=xxx boot option is required so you must use it in your grub.cfg. This option is only supported in SystemRescueCd-1.4.0 and more recent. This option specifies the path of the ISO image in the partition that grub considers as its root partition. It's important to understand that the path of the ISO image may be different from the path on your linux system. If you have a separate boot partition mounted on /boot and if you copy this ISO image to /boot/sysrcd/systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso then the option has to be isoloop=/sysrcd/systemrescuecd-x86-x.y.z.iso. This is because the boot partition is what Grub2 will consider as its root partition during the boot process. Please read the section about isoloop for more details.
+
+
Hardware, drivers and troubleshooting options
+- dodebug: Enables verbose messages in linuxrc
+
+- doload=xxx: loads needed modules, multiple occurrences are permitted (example:
doload=3c59x)
+ - noload=xxx: prevents loading modules, multiple occurrences are permitted (example:
noload=3c59x). Use this option if you have a problem when the system loads a particular module.
+ - nonet: this will disable the network auto detection at startup
+
+- scandelay=x: pauses x seconds during the startup to allow slow devices to initialize. This is required when you boot an USB device. A delay of only few seconds should be enough.
+
+- doxdetect: Since version 0.3.5 the auto-configuration is done in X.Org itself, mkxf86config is disabled by default. This option forces the system to run the mkxf86config startup script and to run the hardware auto-detection from this script. Use this option if you have problems with the graphical environment configuration. This option replaces the option
noxdetect that was useful in previous versions.
+ - nodetect: prevents generic hardware auto-detection. Use this option if you have problems with the hardware auto-detection.
+
+- dostartx: load the X.Org graphical environment.
+
- forcevesa: Forces X.Org to use the safe VESA driver instead of the best video driver detected for your video card. Use this option if you cannot get the graphical environment working with the default options.
+
- forcevesa=xxx: The
startx command will load the Xvesa server instead of Xorg, and use the screen resolution given as parameter (eg: 1024x768, 1280x1024x32).
+
+- all-generic-ide: In case of problems related to your hard disk, try to enable this option (eg
rescuecd all-generic-ide)
+ - nodmraid: Disable dmraid, for some motherboards with built-in RAID controller.
+
- nomdadm: Disable mdadm, for software RAID.
+
+- acpi-off / noapic / irqpool: use these options if you have problem when the kernel boots: if it hangs on a driver or if it crashes, ...
+
+- lowmem: For systems with smaller memory, some daemons are not started including sshd and nfsd.
+
+- skipmount=/dev/xxx: The system mounts all the storage devices at boot time to find the sysrcd.dat file. If your hard disk is broken it should be mounted. Boot with
skipmount=/dev/sda1 skipmount=/dev/sda2 to ignore these two partitions.
+
+
Network configuration and remote access
+- dodhcp: to request a DHCP server provide network attributes including an IP address, gateway... . otherwise,
+
- ethx=ipaddr/cidr: Sets the static IP address of all the ethernet interfaces on the system. The
/cidr extension is optional. For instance, if you use option ethx=192.168.0.1 on a machine with two ethernet adapters, both eth0 and eth1 will be configured with 192.168.0.1. You can use the format ethx=10.0.0.1/24 (using the cidr notation) if you don't use the default netmask.
+ - eth0=ipaddr/cidr: This option is similar to
ethx=ipaddr/cidr but it configures only one interface at a time. To configure the network on a server that has two interfaces, use: eth0=192.168.10.1/24 eth1=192.168.20.1.
- dns=ipaddr: Sets the static IP address of the DNS nameserver you want to use to resolve the names. For instance
dns=192.168.0.254 means that you want to use 192.168.0.254 as the DNS server.
- gateway=ipaddr: Sets the static IP address of the default route on your network. For instance
gateway=192.168.0.254 means that the computer can connect to a computer outside of the local network via 192.168.0.254.
- dhcphostname=myhost: Sets the hostname that the DHCP client will send to the DHCP server. This may be required if the default hostname cannot be used with your DHCP configuration. This option has been introduced in SystemRescueCd-1.3.5.
@@ -186,16 +198,29 @@
- vncserver=x:123456: The vncserver boot option has been introduced in SystemRescueCd-1.0.2. This options forces the system to configure the VNC-server and to start it automatically at boot time. You have to replace
x with the number of displays you want, and 123456 with your password The password must be between 5 and 8 characters, else the boot option will be ignored. In other words the vncserver=2:MyPaSsWd option will give you access to two displays (display=1 on tcp/5901 and display=2 on tcp/5902). Display 0 is reserved for X.Org since SystemRescueCd-1.1.0.
- nameif=xxx: You can can specify what interface name to give to a particular interface using the mac address. You need SystemRescueCd-1.1.0 or newer to do that. Here is how you can specify which interface is using which mac address on a machine with two network interfaces:
nameif=eth0!00:0C:29:57:D0:6E,eth1!00:0C:29:57:D0:64. Be careful, you have to respect the separator (comma between the interfaces and exclamation marks between the name and the mac address).
-
-
Options provided by the autorun
-
+
Network boot using PXE
+SystemRescueCd provides several options for booting from the network using PXE.
+These options can be combined with other network boot options such as ethx (cf previous section). See PXE network booting to get a global overview of SystemRescueCd and PXE and Manage remote servers using PXE.
+
The second stage downloads the kernel + initramfs using DHCP/TFTP.
+
The third stage of the PXE boot process acquires the root files system.
+
Several protocols are available.
+
+- netboot=tftp://ip/path/sysrcd.dat: from a TFTP server. The filesystem is loaded into memory. As a consequence computers with less than 400MB of memory won't be able to boot this way. The system will continue to work if the network is disconnected after the boot process.
+
- netboot=http://ip:port/path/sysrcd.dat: from a Web server. The file system is loaded into memory. Computers with smaller memory won't be able to boot this way. The the system continues to work if the network is disconnected after the boot process.
+
- netboot=nfs://ip:/path: mount an NFSv3 directory. The NFS url must be the path of the directory that contains
sysrcd.dat. Only NFSv3 can be used, NFSv4 is not supported. NFS it allows computers with smaller memory to boot SystemRescueCd from the network. After the boot process, the connection is required or you will loose the access to the root file system.
+ - netboot=nbd://ip:port: connect to an NBD server configured with
sysrcd.dat on ip:port. NBD is easier to configure than NFS (only one TCP port involved) and it allows computers with smaller memort to boot SystemRescueCd from the network. After the boot process, the connection is required the access to the root system.
+
+For information on activating speakup, see the speakup info page.
+
+
Options provided for autorun
- ar_source=xxx: place where the autorun are stored. It may be the root directory of a partition (
/dev/sda1), an nfs share (nfs://192.168.1.1:/path/to/scripts), a samba share (smb://192.168.1.1/path/to/scripts), or an http directory (http://192.168.1.1/path/to/scripts).
- - autoruns=[0-9]: comma separated list of the autorun script that have to be run. For instance if you use
autoruns=0,2,7 then the following autorun scripts will be executed: autorun0, autorun2, autorun7. Use autoruns=no to disable all the autorun scripts with a number.
+ - autoruns=[0-9]: comma separated list of the autorun scrip to be run. For example
autoruns=0,2,7 the autorun sc autorun0, autorun2, autorun7 are run. Use autoruns=no to disable all the autorun scripts with a number.
- ar_ignorefail: continue to execute the scripts chain even if a script failed (returned a non-zero status)
- ar_nodel: do not delete the temporary copy of the autorun scripts located in
/var/autorun/tmp after execution
- ar_disable: completely disable autorun, the simple
autorun script will not be executed
- ar_nowait: do not wait for a keypress after the autorun script have been executed.
+
Clonezilla live is based on
Debian live with clonezilla installed. Therefore there are 2 kinds of boot parameters:
- Boot parameters from live-initramfs. You can refer to this manual of live-initramfs.
- Boot parameters specially for Clonezilla. All of them are named as "ocs_*", e.g. ocs_live_run, ocs_live_extra_param, ocs_live_batch, ocs_lang.
- ocs_live_run is the main program to run in Clonezilla live to save or restore. or other command. Available program: ocs-live-general, ocs-live-restore or any command you write. Use the Absolute path in Clonezilla live.
- e.g. ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general"
+ e.g. ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general"
+ //NOTE// You might have to use "sudo" command inside your own script, or you can assign it like: ocs_live_run="sudo bash /my-clonezilla"
- ocs_live_extra_param will be used only when ocs_live_run=ocs-live-restore (not for ocs-live-general or any other), then it will be passed to ocs-sr. Therefore these parameters are actually those of ocs-sr.
e.g. ocs_live_extra_param="-b -c restoredisk sarge-r5 hda"
- ocs_live_keymap is for keymap used in Clonezilla live. Man install-keymap for more details.
@@ -241,7 +269,17 @@
- ocs_daemonon, ocs_daemonoff, ocs_numlk, ocs_capslk.
Ex. for the first 2 parameters, ocs_daemonon="ssh", then ssh service will be turned on when booting. For the last 2 parameters, use "on" or "off", e.g. ocs_numlk=on to turn on numberlock when booting.
- ocs_prerun, ocs_prerun1, ocs_prerun2... is for you to run a shell script before Clonezilla is started. E.g. ocs_prerun="/live/image/myscript.sh". If you have more commands to run, you can assign them in the order: ocs_prerun=..., ocs_prerun1=..., ocs_prerun2=.... If more than 10 parameters, remember to use ocs_prerun01, ocs_prerun02..., ocs_prerun11 to make it in order.
-
- ocs_live_run_tty. This option allows you to specify the tty where $ocs_live_run is run. By default $ocs_live_run is run on /dev/tty1 only. (It was also on /dev/ttyS0 before, but since Clonezilla live >= 1.2.3-22 no more this due to a problem). If you want to use ttyS0, for example, add live-getty and console=ttyS0,38400n81 in the boot parameter.
+
- ocs_live_run_tty. This option allows you to specify the tty where $ocs_live_run is run. By default $ocs_live_run is run on /dev/tty1 only. (It was also on /dev/ttyS0 before, but since Clonezilla live >= 1.2.3-22 no more this due to a problem). If you want to use ttyS0, for example, add live-getty and console=ttyS0,38400n81 in the boot parameter.
+ //NOTE//
+
+ - This parameter was added in Clonezilla live 1.2.3-22 or later.
+
- If "live-getty console=$tty,38400n81" are assigned in the boot parameters, ocs_live_run_tty will honor $tty, even other value is assigned to ocs_live_run_tty in boot parameter.
+
- It's recommended to assign ocs_lang and ocs_live_keymap in the boot parameters too.
+
+ - ip, this option allows you to specify the network parameters for network card. In Clonezilla live a patched live-initramfs is used, which is different from the original live-initramfs so that you can assign DNS server, too. Its format is: ip=ethernet port,IP address, netmask, gateway, DNS. E.g. If you want to assing eth0 with IP address 10.0.100.1, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway 10.0.100.254, DNS server 8.8.8.8, you can assign the following in the boot parameter:
+ip=eth0,10.0.100.1,255.255.255.0,10.0.100.254,8.8.8.8
+If more than one network card, you can use ":" to separate them, e.g.:
+ip=eth0,10.0.100.1,255.255.255.0,10.0.100.254,8.8.8.8:eth1,192.168.120.1,255.255.255.0,192.168.120.254,,
- Besides, "live-netdev" (yes, not ocs_live_netdev) can be used when using PXE booting, you can force to assign the network device to get filesystem.squashfs. This is useful when there are two or more NICs are linked. E.g. live-netdev="eth1" allows you to force the live-initramfs to use eth1 to fetch the root file system filesystem.squashfs.