source: trunk/syslinux-doc/README.menu @ 116

Last change on this file since 116 was 106, checked in by bas, 16 years ago

Added pxemenu config files and updated some info

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1There are two menu systems included with SYSLINUX, the advanced menu
2system, and the simple menu system.
3
4
5+++ THE ADVANCED MENU SYSTEM +++
6
7The advanced menu system, written by Murali Krishnan Ganapathy, is
8located in the menu/ subdirectly.  It allows the user to create
9hierarchial submenus, dynamic options, checkboxes, and just about
10anything you want.  It requires that the menu is compiled from a
11simple C file, see menu/simple.c and menu/complex.c for examples.
12
13The advanced menu system doesn't support serial console at this time.
14
15See menu/README for more information.
16
17
18+++ THE SIMPLE MENU SYSTEM +++
19
20The simple menu system is a single module located at
21com32/modules/vesamenu.c32 (graphical) or com32/modules/menu.c32 (text
22mode only).  It uses the same configuration file as the regular
23SYSLINUX command line, and displays all the LABEL statements.
24
25To use the menu system, simply make sure [vesa]menu.c32 is in the
26appropriate location for your boot medium (the same directory as the
27configuration file for SYSLINUX, EXTLINUX and ISOLINUX, and the same
28directory as pxelinux.0 for PXELINUX), and put the following options
29in your configuration file:
30
31DEFAULT menu.c32
32PROMPT 0
33
34
35There are a few menu additions to the command line, all starting with
36the keywords MENU or TEXT; like the rest of the SYSLINUX config file
37language, it is case insensitive:
38
39MENU TITLE title
40
41        Give the menu a title.  The title is presented at the top of
42        the menu.
43
44MENU HIDDEN
45
46        Do not display the actual menu unless the user presses a key.
47        All that is displayed is a timeout message.     
48     
49MENU LABEL label
50
51        (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
52        Changes the label displayed for a specific entry.  This allows
53        you to have a label that isn't suitable for the command line,
54        for example:
55
56        # Soft Cap Linux
57        LABEL softcap
58                MENU LABEL Soft Cap ^Linux 9.6.36
59                KERNEL softcap-9.6.36.bzi
60                APPEND whatever
61
62        # A very dense operating system
63        LABEL brick
64                MENU LABEL ^Windows CE/ME/NT
65                KERNEL chain.c32
66                APPEND hd0 2
67
68        The ^ symbol in a MENU LABEL statement defines a hotkey.
69        The hotkey will be highlighted in the menu and will move the
70        menu cursor immediately to that entry.
71
72        Reusing hotkeys is disallowed, subsequent entries will not be
73        highlighted, and will not work.
74
75        Keep in mind that the LABELs, not MENU LABELs, must be unique,
76        or odd things will happen to the command-line.
77
78
79MENU HIDE
80
81        (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
82        Suppresses a particular LABEL entry from the menu.
83
84
85MENU DEFAULT
86
87        (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
88        Indicates that this entry should be the default.  If no
89        default is specified, use the first one.
90
91
92TEXT HELP
93Help text ...
94... which can span multiple lines
95ENDTEXT
96
97        (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
98        Specifies a help text that should be displayed when a particular
99        selection is highlighted.
100
101
102MENU PASSWD passwd
103
104        (Only valid after a LABEL statement.)
105
106        Sets a password on this menu entry.  "passwd" can be either a
107        cleartext password, a SHA-1 encrypted password (starting with
108        $4$), or and MD5 encrypted password (starting with $1$).
109
110        Use the included Perl scripts "sha1pass" or "md5pass" to
111        encrypt passwords.  MD5 passwords are compatible with most
112        Unix password file utilities; SHA-1 passwords are probably
113        unique to SYSLINUX.  Obviously, if you don't encrypt your
114        passwords they will not be very secure at all.
115
116        If you are using passwords, you want to make sure you also use
117        the settings "NOESCAPE 1", "PROMPT 0", and either set
118        "ALLOWOPTIONS 0" or use a master password (see below.)
119
120        If passwd is an empty string, this menu entry can only be
121        unlocked with the master password.
122
123
124MENU MASTER PASSWD passwd
125
126        Sets a master password.  This password can be used to boot any
127        menu entry, and is required for the [Tab] and [Esc] keys to
128        work.
129
130
131MENU BACKGROUND background
132
133        For vesamenu.c32, sets the background image.  The background
134        can either be a color (see MENU COLOR) or the name of an image
135        file, which should be 640x480 pixels and either in PNG or JPEG
136        format.
137
138
139INCLUDE filename
140MENU INCLUDE filename
141
142        Include the contents of the configuration file filename at
143        this point.
144
145        In the case of MENU INCLUDE, the included data is only seen by
146        the menu system; the core syslinux code does not parse this
147        command, so any labels defined in it are unavailable.
148
149
150MENU AUTOBOOT message
151
152        Replaces the message "Automatic boot in # second{,s}...".  The
153        symbol # is replaced with the number of seconds remaining.
154        The syntax "{singular,[dual,]plural}" can be used to conjugate
155        appropriately.
156
157
158MENU TABMSG message
159
160        Replaces the message "Press [Tab] to edit options".
161
162
163MENU NOTABMSG message
164
165        Takes the place of the TABMSG message if option editing is
166        disabled.  Defaults to blank.
167
168
169MENU PASSPROMPT message
170
171        Replaces the message "Password required".
172
173
174MENU COLOR element ansi foreground background shadow
175
176        Sets the color of element "element" to the specified color
177        sequence:
178
179        screen          Rest of the screen
180        border          Border area
181        title           Title bar
182        unsel           Unselected menu item
183        hotkey          Unselected hotkey
184        sel             Selection bar
185        hotsel          Selected hotkey
186        scrollbar       Scroll bar
187        tabmsg          Press [Tab] message
188        cmdmark         Command line marker
189        cmdline         Command line
190        pwdborder       Password box border
191        pwdheader       Password box header
192        pwdentry        Password box contents
193        timeout_msg     Timeout message
194        timeout         Timeout counter
195        help            Help text
196        msgXX           Message (F-key) file attribute XX
197
198        ... where XX is two hexadecimal digits (the "plain text" is 07).
199
200        "ansi" is a sequence of semicolon-separated ECMA-48 Set
201        Graphics Rendition (<ESC>[m) sequences:
202
203        0     reset all attributes to their defaults
204        1     set bold
205        4     set underscore (simulated with color on a color display)
206        5     set blink
207        7     set reverse video
208        22    set normal intensity
209        24    underline off
210        25    blink off
211        27    reverse video off
212        30    set black foreground
213        31    set red foreground
214        32    set green foreground
215        33    set brown foreground
216        34    set blue foreground
217        35    set magenta foreground
218        36    set cyan foreground
219        37    set white foreground
220        38    set underscore on, set default foreground color
221        39    set underscore off, set default foreground color
222        40    set black background
223        41    set red background
224        42    set green background
225        43    set brown background
226        44    set blue background
227        45    set magenta background
228        46    set cyan background
229        47    set white background
230        49    set default background color
231
232        These are used (a) in text mode, and (b) on the serial
233        console.
234
235        "foreground" and "background" are color codes in #AARRGGBB
236        notation, where AA RR GG BB are hexadecimal digits for alpha
237        (opacity), red, green and blue, respectively.  #00000000
238        represents fully transparent, and #ffffffff represents opaque
239        white.
240
241        "shadow" controls the handling of the graphical console text
242        shadow.  Permitted values are "none" (no shadowing), "std" or
243        "standard" (standard shadowing - foreground pixels are
244        raised), "all" (both background and foreground raised), and
245        "rev" or "reverse" (background pixels are raised.)
246
247        If any field is set to "*" or omitted (at the end of the line)
248        then that field is left unchanged.
249
250
251        The current defaults are:
252
253        menu color screen       37;40      #80ffffff #00000000 std
254        menu color border       30;44      #40000000 #00000000 std
255        menu color title        1;36;44    #c00090f0 #00000000 std
256        menu color unsel        37;44      #90ffffff #00000000 std
257        menu color hotkey       1;37;44    #ffffffff #00000000 std
258        menu color sel          7;37;40    #e0000000 #20ff8000 all
259        menu color hotsel       1;7;37;40  #e0400000 #20ff8000 all
260        menu color scrollbar    30;44      #40000000 #00000000 std
261        menu color tabmsg       31;40      #90ffff00 #00000000 std
262        menu color cmdmark      1;36;40    #c000ffff #00000000 std
263        menu color cmdline      37;40      #c0ffffff #00000000 std
264        menu color pwdborder    30;47      #80ffffff #20ffffff std
265        menu color pwdheader    31;47      #80ff8080 #20ffffff std
266        menu color pwdentry     30;47      #80ffffff #20ffffff std
267        menu color timeout_msg  37;40      #80ffffff #00000000 std
268        menu color timeout      1;37;40    #c0ffffff #00000000 std
269        menu color help         37;40      #c0ffffff #00000000 std
270        menu color msg07        37;40      #90ffffff #00000000 std
271
272
273MENU MSGCOLOR fg_filter bg_filter shadow
274
275        Sets *all* the msgXX colors to a color scheme derived from the
276        fg_filter and bg_filter values.  Background color zero is
277        always treated as transparent.  The default corresponds to:
278
279        menu msgcolor #90ffffff #80ffffff std
280
281        This directive should come before any directive that
282        customizes individual msgXX colors.
283
284
285MENU WIDTH 80
286MENU MARGIN 10
287MENU PASSWORDMARGIN 3
288MENU ROWS 12
289MENU TABMSGROW 18
290MENU CMDLINEROW 18
291MENU ENDROW -1
292MENU PASSWORDROW 11
293MENU TIMEOUTROW 20
294MENU HELPMSGROW 22
295MENU HELPMSGENDROW -1
296MENU HIDDENROW -2
297MENU HSHIFT 0
298MENU VSHIFT 0
299
300        These options control the layout of the menu on the screen.
301        The values above are the defaults.
302
303        A negative value is relative to the calculated length of the
304        screen (25 for text mode, 28 for VESA graphics mode.)
305
306
307F1 textfile background
308...
309F12 textfile background
310
311        Displays full-screen help (also available at the command line.)
312        The same control code sequences as in the command line
313        interface are supported, although some are ignored.
314
315        Additionally, a second argument allows a different background
316        image (see MENU BACKGROUND for supported formats) to be displayed.
317
318
319The menu system honours the TIMEOUT command; if TIMEOUT is specified
320it will execute the ONTIMEOUT command if one exists, otherwise it will
321pick the default menu option.
322
323Normally, the user can press [Tab] to edit the menu entry, and [Esc]
324to return to the SYSLINUX command line.  However, if the configuration
325file specifies ALLOWOPTIONS 0, these keys will be disabled, and if
326MENU MASTER PASSWD is set, they require the master password.
327
328The simple menu system supports serial console, using the normal
329SERIAL directive.  However, it can be quite slow over a slow serial
330link; you probably want to set your baudrate to 38400 or higher if
331possible.  It requires a Linux/VT220/ANSI-compatible terminal on the
332other end.
333
334
335        +++ USING AN ALTERNATE CONFIGURATION FILE +++
336
337
338It is also possible to load a secondary configuration file, to get to
339another menu.  To do that, invoke menu.c32 with the name of the
340secondary configuration file.
341
342LABEL othermenu
343        MENU LABEL Another Menu
344        KERNEL menu.c32
345        APPEND othermenu.conf
346
347If you specify more than one file, they will all be read, in the order
348specified.  The dummy filename ~ (tilde) is replaced with the filename
349of the main configuration file.
350
351# The file graphics.conf contains common color and layout commands for
352# all menus.
353LABEL othermenu
354        MENU LABEL Another Menu
355        KERNEL vesamenu.c32
356        APPEND graphics.conf othermenu.conf
357
358# Return to the main menu
359LABEL mainmenu
360        MENU LABEL Return to Main Menu
361        KERNEL vesamenu.c32
362        APPEND graphics.conf ~
363
364See also the MENU INCLUDE directive above.
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