This file shows the parameters passed to the kernel at the time it is started. A sample /proc/cmdline file looks like the following:

ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet 3

This tells us that the kernel is mounted read-only (signified by (ro)), located on the first logical volume (LogVol00) of the first volume group (/dev/VolGroup00). LogVol00 is the equivalent of a disk partition in a non-LVM system (Logical Volume Management), just as /dev/VolGroup00 is similar in concept to /dev/hda1, but much more extensible.

For more information on LVM used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/index.html.

Next, rhgb signals that the rhgb package has been installed, and graphical booting is supported, assuming /etc/inittab shows a default runlevel set to id:5:initdefault:.

Finally, quiet indicates all verbose kernel messages are suppressed at boot time.