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Using the EFI Shell

The shell allows you to explore the EFI environment by entering text commands. You can also browse disk volumes and start EFI applications. Enter “help” to see a list of built-in commands. To get back to the rEFIt menu, leave the shell with the “exit” command.

rEFIt Tools

The following three tools are part of the rEFIt project and are available in the EFI shell:

gptsync.efi
A tool that synchronizes the legacy MBR partition table with the GPT partition table. This gives legacy operating systems and boot loaders access to hard disk partitions. Also available directly in the rEFIt menu.
dumpprot.efi
Outputs a list of all EFI handles and the protocols registered for them. If possible, protocols are identified with name and basic additional information.
TextMode.efi
A small program that switches the EFI console from graphics to text mode.

Additional Tools

The rEFIt distribution contains a current version of the EFI shell from the TianoCore project and some additional tools. Here’s a list of the tools available in the “efi/tools” folder:

dhclient.efi
An EFI driver that implements the client side of the DHCP protocol. Can be used to auto-configure TCP/IP networking.
DrawBox.efi
An example program from the EFI Application Toolkit that demonstrates box drawing and other graphic characters in the EFI console environment.
ed.efi
A port of the Unix standard line editor.
edit.efi
A graphical text editor from the EFI Application Toolkit.
ftp.efi
A port of the BSD ftp client.
hexdump.efi
A port of the BSD hexdump tool.
hostname.efi
A port of the BSD hostname tool, used to get and set the machine’s hostname for TCP/IP networking.
ifconfig.efi
A port of the BSD ifconfig tool, used to configure network interfaces for TCP/IP networking.
loadarg.efi
An EFI tool to load a driver with additional arguments.
ping.efi
A port of the BSD ping tool, used to test TCP/IP connectivity.
pppd.efi
An EFI driver that contains a port of the pppd daemon. Adds PPP capabilities to the TCP/IP stack.
route.efi
A port of the BSD route tool, used to configure routing for TCP/IP networking.
tcpipv4.efi
An EFI driver that contains a port of the TCP/IP networking stack from BSD.
which.efi
A shell tool that displays the full path for a command.