Use Linux efibootmgr Command to Manage UEFI Boot Menu
The Linux efibootmgr command line utility is very handy when it comes to managing UEFI boot menu. This tutorial shows you how to use efibootmgr with 5 examples. It’s assumed that you have installed Linux in UEFI mode.
You can install the efibootmgr command line utility with the following commands.
Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint
sudo apt install efibootmgr
Fedora, CentOS, RedHat
sudo dnf install efibootmgr
SuSE
sudo zypper install efibootmgr
Arch Linux/Manjaro
sudo pacman -S efibootmgr
1 Displaying Current Settings
Simply run the following command. In some Linux distributions like Debian, you need to run it with sudo privilege.
efibootmgr
This command allows you to view the default boot entry (BootCurrent), boot order and all boot entries. Each boot entry is identified by a boot number in hexadecimal. The asterisk (*) means the boot entry is active.
linux efibootmgr
You can also add -v option to show verbose information.
efibootmgr -v
You can see the EFI system partition number, the partition table type (GPT), UUID of the EFI system partition and the boot loader file.
efibootmgr-show-verbose-information
The above screenshot shows that my EFI system partition (ESP) is on the 7th partition of my hard disk (/dev/sda7). It’s a GPT partition table.
2. Changing Boot Order
First, copy the current boot order. For example, my boot order is:
0013,0012,0014,0000,0001,0002,0003,000D,0011,0007,0008,0009,000A,000B,000C,000E
Then type in the following command
sudo efibootmgr -o
And append the boot order to the above command.
sudo efibootmgr -o 0013,0012,0014,0000,0001,0002,0003,000D,0011,0007,0008,0009,000A,000B,000C,000E
Let’s say you want 0012 to be the first boot entry. All you have to do is move it to the left of 0013 and press Enter.
sudo efibootmgr -o 0012,0013,0014,0000,0001,0002,0003,000D,0011,0007,0008,0009,000A,000B,000C,000E
3. Adding Boot Entry
If you have installed multiple Linux distributions on your computer, but one of the Linux distribution doesn’t have a UEFI boot entry, you can manually add it.
Boot into the Linux distro that doesn’t have UFEI boot entry. Then make sure it has the EFI version of GRUB boot loader installed.
Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint
sudo apt install grub-efi
Fedora
sudo dnf install grub2-efi-modules
Then mount the EFI system partition (ESP) under /boot/efi/ directory. In this example, /dev/sda7 is the ESP.
sudo mount /dev/sda7 /boot/efi/
Then install Grub boot loader to ESP.
sudo grub-install /dev/sda --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi/
x86_64-efi means that we are going to install Grub for UEFI firmware. The default target is i386-pc, which is for traditional BIOS firmware.
Now, you should see a new entry in UEFI boot menu with the bootmgr command. Under the hood, the Grub installer first installs a .efi booloader file to /boot/efi/EFI/<label>/ directory. Usually it’s named grubx64.efi. Then it runs the following command to add a new entry in UEFI boot menu.
efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 7 -L <label> -l \EFI\<label>\grubx64.efi
Newly added entry will be the first in boot order.
4. Deleteing Boot Entry
Let’s say you have installed multiple Linux distributions on a hard disk so you have multiple boot entries just like the above screenshot. And now you deleted a Linux distro but the boot entry is still there. To remove the respective boot entry, run:
sudo efibootmgr -b <bootnum> -B
For example,
sudo efibootmgr -b 0014 -B
-b option specify the boot number. -B option delete that boot number.
5. Setting a Boot Entry Active or Inactive
A boot entry followed by asterisk indicates that it’s active. Otherwise it’s inactive. To set a boot entry active, run:
sudo efibootmgr -b <bootnum> -a
To set a boot entry inactive, run:
sudo efibootmgr -b <bootnum> -A
On my other computer, Linux Mint always hides the GRUB boot menu no matter what I try. Sometimes I need to use another Linux distro such as Fedora. So I disable the Linux Mint boot entry from the UEFI boot menu. Now it uses the Fedora boot menu, which doesn’t hide Grub boot menu.
However, when you upgrade Linux Mint to a new release, the Linux Mint boot entry will be restored in the system upgrade procedure.
I can set up a systemd service file to automatically disable Linux Mint boot entry.
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/disable-boot-entry.service
Add the following line in this file.
[Unit]
Description=disable Linux Mint Boot Entry
After=multi-user.target
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/efibootmgr -b 0008 -A'
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the file. Then enable this servcie.
sudo systemctl enable disable-boot-entry.service