retroboot/docs/gnulinux/grub_cbfs.md

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title: Modifying the GRUB configuration in CBFS for bare metal GNU GRUB coreboot payload x-toc enable: true ...

This guide assumes that you use the GNU GRUB bootloader as your default payload. In this configuration, GNU GRUB is flashed alongside coreboot and runs on bare metal as a native coreboot payload and does not use BIOS or UEFI services (but it can load and execute SeaBIOS, in addition to any other coreboot payload, by chainloading it).

In most circumstances, this guide will not benefit you. Retroboot's default GRUB configuration file contains scripting logic within it that intelligently searches for GRUB partitions installed onto a partition on your SSD, HDD or USB drive installed on your computer. If such a file is found, Retroboot's default GRUB configuration is configured to switch automatically to that configuration. While not perfect, the logic does work with most configurations.

Therefore, you should only follow this guide if the automation (described above) does not work. It goes without saying that modifying the default GRUB configuration is risky, because a misconfiguration could create what's called a soft brick where your machine is effectively useless and, in that scenario, may or may not require external flashing equipment for restoring the machine to a known state.

Extracting the GRUB configuration file from your Retroboot ROM image

There are mainly three methods for obtaining a Retroboot ROM image:

1. Dump the contents of the the main boot flash on your system, which already has Retroboot installed (with GNU GRUB as the default payload). Extract the GRUB configuration from that ROM image.
2. Extract it from a Retroboot ROM image supplied by the Retroboot project, on the Retroboot website or mirrors of the Retroboot website.
3. Build the ROM yourself, using the Retroboot build system. Instructions for how to do this are covered in the following article: How to build Retroboot from source

In either case, you will use the cbfstool supplied by the coreboot project. This can be found under coreboot/*/util/cbfstool/ as source code, where * can be any coreboot source code directory for a given mainboard.

For the time being, no stable Retroboot release exists and there are no archives available with pre-compiled binaries. Therefore, we will download the source code and compile it.

Since no stable release schedule is yet established for Retroboot, you may also wish to compile the Retroboot ROM yourself. The guide linked above will tell you how to do that.

Install the build dependencies. For Ubuntu 20.04 and similar, you can run the following command in the Retroboot build system, from the root directory of the Retroboot Git repository.

./build dependencies ubuntu2004

Then, download coreboot:

./download coreboot

Finally, compile the cbutils module:

./build module cbutils

Among other things, this will produce a cbfstool executable under any of the subdirectories in coreboot/ under `util/cbfstool/cbfstool

For example: coreboot/x230_4mb/util/cbfstool/cbfstool

The cbfstool utility is what you shall use. It is used to manipulate CBFS (coreboot file system) which is a file system contained within the coreboot ROM image; as a coreboot distribution, Retroboot inherits this technology.

You will also want to build flashrom which Retroboot recommends for reading from and/or writing to the boot flash. In the Retroboot build system, you can build it by running this command:

./build module flashrom

An executable will be available at flashrom/flashrom after you have done this.

Dump the boot flash

If you wish to modify your existing Retroboot ROM, which was installed on your computer, you can use flashrom to acquire it.

Simply run the following, after using Retroboot's build system to compile flashrom:

sudo ./flashrom/flashrom -p internal -r dump.bin

If flashrom complains about multiple flash chip definitions, do what it says to rectify your command and run it again.

The internal option assumes that internal read/write is possible; this is when you read from and/or write to the boot flash from an operating systems (usually GNU+Linux) that is running on the target system.

At other sites, you may need to connect an SPI programmer externally (with the machine powered down) and read the contents of the boot flash. At present, the only SPI flasher documented by Retroboot is the Raspberry Pi which you can learn how to use (for this purpose) by reading the following guide: How to program an SPI flash chip with the Raspberry Pi

You can simply put a custom grub.cfg under /boot/grub/ on your installed GNU+Linux system, if you're using GNU+Linux. Retroboot also provides instructions for systems running BSD with GNU GRUB payload in Retroboot, on these articles: ../bsd/

Retroboot images that use the GNU GRUB bootloader will have two configuration files in CBFS:

• grub.cfg
• grubtest.cfg

We recommend that you modify grubtest.cfg first, and boot. Select the boot menu option for loading grubtest.cfg and verify that your new config works correctly. If it doesn't, keep modifying grubtest.cfg until it does work. When that it done, copy the changes over to `grub.cfg

You can use the following commands to modify the contents of CBFS, where GRUB's configuration file is concerned (dump.bin is the ROM that you dumped, or it could refer to the Retroboot ROM image that you compiled or otherwise acquired).

Show the contents of CBFS, in your ROM:

cbfstool dump.bin print

Remove grub.cfg (substitute with grubtest.cfg as desired):

cbfstool dump.bin remove -n grub.cfg

Add your modified grub.cfg (substitute with grubtest.cfg as desired):

cbfstool dump.bin add -f grub.cfg -n grub.cfg -t raw

Your modified dump.bin or other modified Retroboot ROM can then be re-flashed using:

sudo ./flashrom -p internal -w dump.bin

If a -c option is required, use it and specify a flash chip name. This is only useful when flashrom complains about multiple flash chips being detected.

If you need to use external flashing equipment, see the link above to the Raspberry Pi page.