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InUnix-likeoperating systems, aboot folder is thedirectory which holds files used inbooting the operating system, typically/boot. The usage is standardized withinLinux in theFilesystem Hierarchy Standard.[1]
The contents are mostly Linux kernel files orboot loader files, depending on the boot loader, most commonly (on Linux) LILO or GRUB.
vmlinux – the Linux kernel[2]initrd.img – a temporary file system, used prior to loading the kernel[3]System.map – a symbol lookup table[4]LILO creates and uses the following files:
map – a key file, which records where files needed by LILO during boot are stored. Following kernel upgrades, this file must be regenerated by running the "map installer", which is/sbin/lilo otherwise the system will not boot.boot.xxyy – these 512-byte files are backups ofboot sectors, either themaster boot record (MBR) orvolume boot record (VBR), created when LILO overwrites a boot sector.xx andyy are the major and minor device numbers in hex;[5] for example, the drivesda has numbers 8, 0, hence its MBR is backed up toboot.0800 while the partitionsda3 has numbers 8,3, hence its VBR is backed up toboot.0803.LILO may also use other files, such asmessage and also stores a non-boot configuration file in/etc/lilo.conf.
GRUB stores its files in the subdirectorygrub/ (i.e./boot/grub/). These files are mostly modules (.mod), with configuration stored ingrub.cfg.
/boot/ is often simply a directory on the main (or only) hard drivepartition. However, it may be a separate partition. A separate partition is generally only used when bootloaders are incapable of reading the main filesystem (e.g. LILO does not recognizeXFS) or other problems not easily resolvable by users.[citation needed]
OnUEFI systems, including most modern PCs, theEFI system partition is often mounted at/boot/,/efi/ or/boot/efi/.[6][7]
