README

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