README.md

   1 ## kmod - Linux kernel module handling
   2
   3 [![Coverity Scan Status](https://scan.coverity.com/projects/2096/badge.svg)](https://scan.coverity.com/projects/2096)
   4
   5
   6 Information
   7 ===========
   8
   9 Mailing list:
  10         linux-modules@vger.kernel.org (no subscription needed)
  11         https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/
  12
  13 Signed packages:
  14         http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/
  15
  16 Git:
  17         git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git
  18         http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git
  19         https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git
  20
  21 Gitweb:
  22         http://git.kernel.org/?p=utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git
  23         https://github.com/kmod-project/kmod
  24
  25 Irc:
  26         #kmod on irc.freenode.org
  27
  28 License:
  29         LGPLv2.1+ for libkmod, testsuite and helper libraries
  30         GPLv2+ for tools/*
  31
  32
  33 OVERVIEW
  34 ========
  35
  36 kmod is a set of tools to handle common tasks with Linux kernel modules like
  37 insert, remove, list, check properties, resolve dependencies and aliases.
  38
  39 These tools are designed on top of libkmod, a library that is shipped with
  40 kmod. See libkmod/README for more details on this library and how to use it.
  41 The aim is to be compatible with tools, configurations and indexes from
  42 module-init-tools project.
  43
  44 Compilation and installation
  45 ============================
  46
  47 In order to compiler the source code you need following software packages:
  48         - GCC compiler
  49         - GNU C library
  50
  51 Optional dependencies:
  52         - ZLIB library
  53         - LZMA library
  54
  55 Typical configuration:
  56         ./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2" --prefix=/usr \
  57                         --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib
  58
  59 Configure automatically searches for all required components and packages.
  60
  61 To compile and install run:
  62         make && make install
  63
  64 Hacking
  65 =======
  66
  67 Run 'autogen.sh' script before configure. If you want to accept the recommended
  68 flags, you just need to run 'autogen.sh c'. Note that the recommended
  69 flags require cython be installed to compile successfully.
  70
  71 Make sure to read the CODING-STYLE file and the other READMEs: libkmod/README
  72 and testsuite/README.
  73
  74 Compatibility with module-init-tools
  75 ====================================
  76
  77 kmod replaces module-init-tools, which is end-of-life. Most of its tools are
  78 rewritten on top of libkmod so it can be used as a drop in replacements.
  79 Somethings however were changed. Reasons vary from "the feature was already
  80 long deprecated on module-init-tools" to "it would be too much trouble to
  81 support it".
  82
  83 There are several features that are being added in kmod, but we don't
  84 keep track of them here.
  85
  86 modprobe
  87 --------
  88
  89 * 'modprobe -l' was marked as deprecated and does not exist anymore
  90
  91 * 'modprobe -t' is gone, together with 'modprobe -l'
  92
  93 * modprobe doesn't parse configuration files with names not ending in
  94   '.alias' or '.conf'. modprobe used to warn about these files.
  95
  96 * modprobe doesn't parse 'config' and 'include' commands in configuration
  97   files.
  98
  99 * modprobe from m-i-t does not honour softdeps for install commands. E.g.:
 100   config:
 101
 102         install bli "echo bli"
 103         install bla "echo bla"
 104         softdep bla pre: bli
 105
 106   With m-i-t, the output of 'modprobe --show-depends bla' will be:
 107         install "echo bla"
 108
 109   While with kmod:
 110         install "echo bli"
 111         install "echo bla"
 112
 113 * kmod doesn't dump the configuration as is in the config files. Instead it
 114   dumps the configuration as it was parsed. Therefore, comments and file names
 115   are not dumped, but on the good side we know what the exact configuration
 116   kmod is using. We did this because if we only want to know the entire content
 117   of configuration files, it's enough to use find(1) in modprobe.d directories
 118
 119 depmod
 120 ------
 121
 122 * there's no 'depmod -m' option: legacy modules.*map files are gone
 123
 124 lsmod
 125 -----
 126
 127 * module-init-tools used /proc/modules to parse module info. kmod uses
 128   /sys/module/*, but there's a fallback to /proc/modules if the latter isn't
 129   available