README

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