1 There are two menu systems included with Syslinux, the advanced menu
2 system, and the simple menu system.
5 +++ THE ADVANCED MENU SYSTEM +++
7 The advanced menu system, written by Murali Krishnan Ganapathy, is
8 located in the menu/ subdirectly. It allows the user to create
9 hierarchial submenus, dynamic options, checkboxes, and just about
10 anything you want. It requires that the menu is compiled from a
11 simple C file, see menu/simple.c and menu/complex.c for examples.
13 The advanced menu system doesn't support serial console at this time.
15 See menu/README for more information.
18 +++ THE SIMPLE MENU SYSTEM +++
20 The simple menu system is a single module located at
21 com32/modules/vesamenu.c32 (graphical) or com32/modules/menu.c32 (text
22 mode only). It uses the same configuration file as the regular
23 Syslinux command line, and displays all the LABEL statements.
25 To use the menu system, simply make sure [vesa]menu.c32 is in the
26 appropriate location for your boot medium (the same directory as the
27 configuration file for SYSLINUX, EXTLINUX and ISOLINUX, and the same
28 directory as pxelinux.0 for PXELINUX), and put the following options
29 in your configuration file:
34 There are a few menu additions to the configuration file, all starting
35 with the keywords MENU or TEXT; like the rest of the Syslinux config
36 file language, it is case insensitive:
41 Give the menu a title. The title is presented at the top of
47 Do not display the actual menu unless the user presses a key.
48 All that is displayed is a timeout message.
53 Insert an empty line in the menu.
58 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
59 Changes the label displayed for a specific entry. This allows
60 you to have a label that isn't suitable for the command line,
65 MENU LABEL Soft Cap ^Linux 9.6.36
66 KERNEL softcap-9.6.36.bzi
69 # A very dense operating system
71 MENU LABEL ^Windows CE/ME/NT
75 The ^ symbol in a MENU LABEL statement defines a hotkey.
76 The hotkey will be highlighted in the menu and will move the
77 menu cursor immediately to that entry.
79 Reusing hotkeys is disallowed, subsequent entries will not be
80 highlighted, and will not work.
82 Keep in mind that the LABELs, not MENU LABELs, must be unique,
83 or odd things will happen to the command-line.
88 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
89 Will add "count" spaces in front of the displayed menu entry.
94 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
95 Makes the entry unselectable. This allows you to make a
96 section in your menu with different options below it.
99 # Entries for network boots
106 MENU LABEL Soft Cap ^Linux 9.6.36
108 KERNEL softcap-9.6.36.bzi
116 APPEND initrd=dos622.imz
121 # Entries for local boots
128 MENU LABEL ^Windows 2000
135 MENU LABEL Windows ^XP
142 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
143 Suppresses a particular LABEL entry from the menu.
148 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
150 Indicates that this entry should be the default for this
151 particular submenu. See also the DEFAULT directive below.
156 ... which can span multiple lines
159 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
161 Specifies a help text that should be displayed when a particular
162 selection is highlighted.
167 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
169 Sets a password on this menu entry. "passwd" can be either a
170 cleartext password, a SHA-1 encrypted password (starting with
171 $4$), or and MD5 encrypted password (starting with $1$).
173 Use the included Perl scripts "sha1pass" or "md5pass" to
174 encrypt passwords. MD5 passwords are compatible with most
175 Unix password file utilities; SHA-1 passwords are probably
176 unique to Syslinux. Obviously, if you don't encrypt your
177 passwords they will not be very secure at all.
179 If you are using passwords, you want to make sure you also use
180 the settings "NOESCAPE 1", "PROMPT 0", and either set
181 "ALLOWOPTIONS 0" or use a master password (see below.)
183 If passwd is an empty string, this menu entry can only be
184 unlocked with the master password.
187 MENU MASTER PASSWD passwd
189 Sets a master password. This password can be used to boot any
190 menu entry, and is required for the [Tab] and [Esc] keys to
194 MENU BACKGROUND background
196 For vesamenu.c32, sets the background image. The background
197 can either be a color (see MENU COLOR) or the name of an image
198 file, which should be 640x480 pixels and either in PNG or JPEG
205 Begin/end a submenu. The entries between MENU BEGIN and MENU
206 END form a submenu, which is marked with a > mark on the right
207 hand of the screen. Submenus inherit the properties of their
208 parent menus, but can override them, and can thus have their
209 own backgrounds, master passwords, titles, timeouts, messages
215 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
217 This label will transfer to the named submenu instead of
218 booting anything. To transfer to the top-level menu, specify
224 (Only valid after a label statement inside MENU BEGIN ...
227 Exit to the next higher menu, or, if tagname is specified, to
233 (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
235 This label quits the menu system.
237 WARNING: if MENU MASTER PASSWD or ALLOWOPTIONS 0 is set, this
238 will still allow exiting to the CLI; however, a separate MENU
239 PASSWD can of course be set for this label.
244 (Only valid inside MENU BEGIN ... MENU END)
246 Indicates that the menu system should start at the menu being
247 defined instead of at the top-level menu. See also the
248 DEFAULT directive below.
253 Set the global default. If "label" points into a submenu,
254 that menu becomes the start menu; in other words, this
255 directive has the same effect as both MENU DEFAULT and MENU
258 For backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Syslinux,
259 this directive is ignored unless the configuration file also
260 contains a UI directive.
262 Note: the CLI accepts options after the label, or even a
263 non-label. The menu system does not support that.
266 INCLUDE filename [tagname]
267 MENU INCLUDE filename [tagname]
269 Include the contents of the configuration file filename at
272 In the case of MENU INCLUDE, the included data is only seen by
273 the menu system; the core syslinux code does not parse this
274 command, so any labels defined in it are unavailable.
276 If a tagname is included, the whole file is considered to have
277 been bracketed with a MENU BEGIN tagname ... MENU END pair,
278 and will therefore show up as a submenu.
281 MENU AUTOBOOT message
283 Replaces the message "Automatic boot in # second{,s}...". The
284 symbol # is replaced with the number of seconds remaining.
285 The syntax "{singular,[dual,]plural}" can be used to conjugate
291 Replaces the message "Press [Tab] to edit options".
294 MENU NOTABMSG message
296 Takes the place of the TABMSG message if option editing is
297 disabled. Defaults to blank.
300 MENU PASSPROMPT message
302 Replaces the message "Password required".
305 MENU COLOR element ansi foreground background shadow
307 Sets the color of element "element" to the specified color
310 screen Rest of the screen
313 unsel Unselected menu item
314 hotkey Unselected hotkey
316 hotsel Selected hotkey
317 disabled Disabled menu item
319 tabmsg Press [Tab] message
320 cmdmark Command line marker
322 pwdborder Password box border
323 pwdheader Password box header
324 pwdentry Password box contents
325 timeout_msg Timeout message
326 timeout Timeout counter
328 msgXX Message (F-key) file attribute XX
330 ... where XX is two hexadecimal digits (the "plain text" is 07).
332 "ansi" is a sequence of semicolon-separated ECMA-48 Set
333 Graphics Rendition (<ESC>[m) sequences:
335 0 reset all attributes to their defaults
337 4 set underscore (simulated with color on a color display)
340 22 set normal intensity
344 30 set black foreground
345 31 set red foreground
346 32 set green foreground
347 33 set brown foreground
348 34 set blue foreground
349 35 set magenta foreground
350 36 set cyan foreground
351 37 set white foreground
352 38 set underscore on, set default foreground color
353 39 set underscore off, set default foreground color
354 40 set black background
355 41 set red background
356 42 set green background
357 43 set brown background
358 44 set blue background
359 45 set magenta background
360 46 set cyan background
361 47 set white background
362 49 set default background color
364 These are used (a) in text mode, and (b) on the serial
367 "foreground" and "background" are color codes in #AARRGGBB
368 notation, where AA RR GG BB are hexadecimal digits for alpha
369 (opacity), red, green and blue, respectively. #00000000
370 represents fully transparent, and #ffffffff represents opaque
373 "shadow" controls the handling of the graphical console text
374 shadow. Permitted values are "none" (no shadowing), "std" or
375 "standard" (standard shadowing - foreground pixels are
376 raised), "all" (both background and foreground raised), and
377 "rev" or "reverse" (background pixels are raised.)
379 If any field is set to "*" or omitted (at the end of the line)
380 then that field is left unchanged.
383 The current defaults are:
385 menu color screen 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std
386 menu color border 30;44 #40000000 #00000000 std
387 menu color title 1;36;44 #c00090f0 #00000000 std
388 menu color unsel 37;44 #90ffffff #00000000 std
389 menu color hotkey 1;37;44 #ffffffff #00000000 std
390 menu color sel 7;37;40 #e0000000 #20ff8000 all
391 menu color hotsel 1;7;37;40 #e0400000 #20ff8000 all
392 menu color disabled 1;30;44 #60cccccc #00000000 std
393 menu color scrollbar 30;44 #40000000 #00000000 std
394 menu color tabmsg 31;40 #90ffff00 #00000000 std
395 menu color cmdmark 1;36;40 #c000ffff #00000000 std
396 menu color cmdline 37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
397 menu color pwdborder 30;47 #80ffffff #20ffffff std
398 menu color pwdheader 31;47 #80ff8080 #20ffffff std
399 menu color pwdentry 30;47 #80ffffff #20ffffff std
400 menu color timeout_msg 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std
401 menu color timeout 1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
402 menu color help 37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
403 menu color msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #00000000 std
406 MENU MSGCOLOR fg_filter bg_filter shadow
408 Sets *all* the msgXX colors to a color scheme derived from the
409 fg_filter and bg_filter values. Background color zero is
410 always treated as transparent. The default corresponds to:
412 menu msgcolor #90ffffff #80ffffff std
414 This directive should come before any directive that
415 customizes individual msgXX colors.
420 MENU PASSWORDMARGIN 3
428 MENU HELPMSGENDROW -1
433 These options control the layout of the menu on the screen.
434 The values above are the defaults.
436 A negative value is relative to the calculated length of the
437 screen (25 for text mode, 28 for VESA graphics mode.)
440 F1 textfile background
442 F12 textfile background
444 Displays full-screen help (also available at the command line.)
445 The same control code sequences as in the command line
446 interface are supported, although some are ignored.
448 Additionally, a second argument allows a different background
449 image (see MENU BACKGROUND for supported formats) to be displayed.
452 The menu system honours the TIMEOUT command; if TIMEOUT is specified
453 it will execute the ONTIMEOUT command if one exists, otherwise it will
454 pick the default menu option.
456 Normally, the user can press [Tab] to edit the menu entry, and [Esc]
457 to return to the Syslinux command line. However, if the configuration
458 file specifies ALLOWOPTIONS 0, these keys will be disabled, and if
459 MENU MASTER PASSWD is set, they require the master password.
461 The simple menu system supports serial console, using the normal
462 SERIAL directive. However, it can be quite slow over a slow serial
463 link; you probably want to set your baudrate to 38400 or higher if
464 possible. It requires a Linux/VT220/ANSI-compatible terminal on the
468 +++ USING AN ALTERNATE CONFIGURATION FILE +++
471 It is also possible to load a secondary configuration file, to get to
472 another menu. To do that, invoke menu.c32 with the name of the
473 secondary configuration file.
476 MENU LABEL Another Menu
478 APPEND othermenu.conf
480 If you specify more than one file, they will all be read, in the order
481 specified. The dummy filename ~ (tilde) is replaced with the filename
482 of the main configuration file.
484 # The file graphics.conf contains common color and layout commands for
487 MENU LABEL Another Menu
489 APPEND graphics.conf othermenu.conf
491 # Return to the main menu
493 MENU LABEL Return to Main Menu
495 APPEND graphics.conf ~
497 See also the MENU INCLUDE directive above.