Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.rst

   1 .. _kernelparameters:
   2
   3 The kernel's command-line parameters
   4 ====================================
   5
   6 The following is a consolidated list of the kernel parameters as
   7 implemented by the __setup(), core_param() and module_param() macros
   8 and sorted into English Dictionary order (defined as ignoring all
   9 punctuation and sorting digits before letters in a case insensitive
  10 manner), and with descriptions where known.
  11
  12 The kernel parses parameters from the kernel command line up to "--";
  13 if it doesn't recognize a parameter and it doesn't contain a '.', the
  14 parameter gets passed to init: parameters with '=' go into init's
  15 environment, others are passed as command line arguments to init.
  16 Everything after "--" is passed as an argument to init.
  17
  18 Module parameters can be specified in two ways: via the kernel command
  19 line with a module name prefix, or via modprobe, e.g.::
  20
  21         (kernel command line) usbcore.blinkenlights=1
  22         (modprobe command line) modprobe usbcore blinkenlights=1
  23
  24 Parameters for modules which are built into the kernel need to be
  25 specified on the kernel command line.  modprobe looks through the
  26 kernel command line (/proc/cmdline) and collects module parameters
  27 when it loads a module, so the kernel command line can be used for
  28 loadable modules too.
  29
  30 Hyphens (dashes) and underscores are equivalent in parameter names, so::
  31
  32         log_buf_len=1M print-fatal-signals=1
  33
  34 can also be entered as::
  35
  36         log-buf-len=1M print_fatal_signals=1
  37
  38 Double-quotes can be used to protect spaces in values, e.g.::
  39
  40         param="spaces in here"
  41
  42 cpu lists:
  43 ----------
  44
  45 Some kernel parameters take a list of CPUs as a value, e.g.  isolcpus,
  46 nohz_full, irqaffinity, rcu_nocbs.  The format of this list is:
  47
  48         <cpu number>,...,<cpu number>
  49
  50 or
  51
  52         <cpu number>-<cpu number>
  53         (must be a positive range in ascending order)
  54
  55 or a mixture
  56
  57 <cpu number>,...,<cpu number>-<cpu number>
  58
  59 Note that for the special case of a range one can split the range into equal
  60 sized groups and for each group use some amount from the beginning of that
  61 group:
  62
  63         <cpu number>-cpu number>:<used size>/<group size>
  64
  65 For example one can add to the command line following parameter:
  66
  67         isolcpus=1,2,10-20,100-2000:2/25
  68
  69 where the final item represents CPUs 100,101,125,126,150,151,...
  70
  71
  72
  73 This document may not be entirely up to date and comprehensive. The command
  74 "modinfo -p ${modulename}" shows a current list of all parameters of a loadable
  75 module. Loadable modules, after being loaded into the running kernel, also
  76 reveal their parameters in /sys/module/${modulename}/parameters/. Some of these
  77 parameters may be changed at runtime by the command
  78 ``echo -n ${value} > /sys/module/${modulename}/parameters/${parm}``.
  79
  80 The parameters listed below are only valid if certain kernel build options were
  81 enabled and if respective hardware is present. The text in square brackets at
  82 the beginning of each description states the restrictions within which a
  83 parameter is applicable::
  84
  85         ACPI    ACPI support is enabled.
  86         AGP     AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) is enabled.
  87         ALSA    ALSA sound support is enabled.
  88         APIC    APIC support is enabled.
  89         APM     Advanced Power Management support is enabled.
  90         ARM     ARM architecture is enabled.
  91         AX25    Appropriate AX.25 support is enabled.
  92         BLACKFIN Blackfin architecture is enabled.
  93         CLK     Common clock infrastructure is enabled.
  94         CMA     Contiguous Memory Area support is enabled.
  95         DRM     Direct Rendering Management support is enabled.
  96         DYNAMIC_DEBUG Build in debug messages and enable them at runtime
  97         EDD     BIOS Enhanced Disk Drive Services (EDD) is enabled
  98         EFI     EFI Partitioning (GPT) is enabled
  99         EIDE    EIDE/ATAPI support is enabled.
 100         EVM     Extended Verification Module
 101         FB      The frame buffer device is enabled.
 102         FTRACE  Function tracing enabled.
 103         GCOV    GCOV profiling is enabled.
 104         HW      Appropriate hardware is enabled.
 105         IA-64   IA-64 architecture is enabled.
 106         IMA     Integrity measurement architecture is enabled.
 107         IOSCHED More than one I/O scheduler is enabled.
 108         IP_PNP  IP DHCP, BOOTP, or RARP is enabled.
 109         IPV6    IPv6 support is enabled.
 110         ISAPNP  ISA PnP code is enabled.
 111         ISDN    Appropriate ISDN support is enabled.
 112         ISOL    CPU Isolation is enabled.
 113         JOY     Appropriate joystick support is enabled.
 114         KGDB    Kernel debugger support is enabled.
 115         KVM     Kernel Virtual Machine support is enabled.
 116         LIBATA  Libata driver is enabled
 117         LP      Printer support is enabled.
 118         LOOP    Loopback device support is enabled.
 119         M68k    M68k architecture is enabled.
 120                         These options have more detailed description inside of
 121                         Documentation/m68k/kernel-options.txt.
 122         MDA     MDA console support is enabled.
 123         MIPS    MIPS architecture is enabled.
 124         MOUSE   Appropriate mouse support is enabled.
 125         MSI     Message Signaled Interrupts (PCI).
 126         MTD     MTD (Memory Technology Device) support is enabled.
 127         NET     Appropriate network support is enabled.
 128         NUMA    NUMA support is enabled.
 129         NFS     Appropriate NFS support is enabled.
 130         OSS     OSS sound support is enabled.
 131         PV_OPS  A paravirtualized kernel is enabled.
 132         PARIDE  The ParIDE (parallel port IDE) subsystem is enabled.
 133         PARISC  The PA-RISC architecture is enabled.
 134         PCI     PCI bus support is enabled.
 135         PCIE    PCI Express support is enabled.
 136         PCMCIA  The PCMCIA subsystem is enabled.
 137         PNP     Plug & Play support is enabled.
 138         PPC     PowerPC architecture is enabled.
 139         PPT     Parallel port support is enabled.
 140         PS2     Appropriate PS/2 support is enabled.
 141         RAM     RAM disk support is enabled.
 142         RDT     Intel Resource Director Technology.
 143         S390    S390 architecture is enabled.
 144         SCSI    Appropriate SCSI support is enabled.
 145                         A lot of drivers have their options described inside
 146                         the Documentation/scsi/ sub-directory.
 147         SECURITY Different security models are enabled.
 148         SELINUX SELinux support is enabled.
 149         APPARMOR AppArmor support is enabled.
 150         SERIAL  Serial support is enabled.
 151         SH      SuperH architecture is enabled.
 152         SMP     The kernel is an SMP kernel.
 153         SPARC   Sparc architecture is enabled.
 154         SWSUSP  Software suspend (hibernation) is enabled.
 155         SUSPEND System suspend states are enabled.
 156         TPM     TPM drivers are enabled.
 157         TS      Appropriate touchscreen support is enabled.
 158         UMS     USB Mass Storage support is enabled.
 159         USB     USB support is enabled.
 160         USBHID  USB Human Interface Device support is enabled.
 161         V4L     Video For Linux support is enabled.
 162         VMMIO   Driver for memory mapped virtio devices is enabled.
 163         VGA     The VGA console has been enabled.
 164         VT      Virtual terminal support is enabled.
 165         WDT     Watchdog support is enabled.
 166         XT      IBM PC/XT MFM hard disk support is enabled.
 167         X86-32  X86-32, aka i386 architecture is enabled.
 168         X86-64  X86-64 architecture is enabled.
 169                         More X86-64 boot options can be found in
 170                         Documentation/x86/x86_64/boot-options.txt .
 171         X86     Either 32-bit or 64-bit x86 (same as X86-32+X86-64)
 172         X86_UV  SGI UV support is enabled.
 173         XEN     Xen support is enabled
 174
 175 In addition, the following text indicates that the option::
 176
 177         BUGS=   Relates to possible processor bugs on the said processor.
 178         KNL     Is a kernel start-up parameter.
 179         BOOT    Is a boot loader parameter.
 180
 181 Parameters denoted with BOOT are actually interpreted by the boot
 182 loader, and have no meaning to the kernel directly.
 183 Do not modify the syntax of boot loader parameters without extreme
 184 need or coordination with <Documentation/x86/boot.txt>.
 185
 186 There are also arch-specific kernel-parameters not documented here.
 187 See for example <Documentation/x86/x86_64/boot-options.txt>.
 188
 189 Note that ALL kernel parameters listed below are CASE SENSITIVE, and that
 190 a trailing = on the name of any parameter states that that parameter will
 191 be entered as an environment variable, whereas its absence indicates that
 192 it will appear as a kernel argument readable via /proc/cmdline by programs
 193 running once the system is up.
 194
 195 The number of kernel parameters is not limited, but the length of the
 196 complete command line (parameters including spaces etc.) is limited to
 197 a fixed number of characters. This limit depends on the architecture
 198 and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is defined in the file
 199 ./include/asm/setup.h as COMMAND_LINE_SIZE.
 200
 201 Finally, the [KMG] suffix is commonly described after a number of kernel
 202 parameter values. These 'K', 'M', and 'G' letters represent the _binary_
 203 multipliers 'Kilo', 'Mega', and 'Giga', equaling 2^10, 2^20, and 2^30
 204 bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted:
 205
 206 .. include:: kernel-parameters.txt
 207    :literal:
 208
 209 Todo
 210 ----
 211
 212         Add more DRM drivers.