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         - ZSTD library
  55         - OPENSSL library (signature handling in modinfo)
  56
  57 Typical configuration:
  58         ./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2" --prefix=/usr \
  59                         --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib
  60
  61 Configure automatically searches for all required components and packages.
  62
  63 To compile and install run:
  64         make && make install
  65
  66 Hacking
  67 =======
  68
  69 Run 'autogen.sh' script before configure. If you want to accept the recommended
  70 flags, you just need to run 'autogen.sh c'.
  71
  72 Make sure to read the CODING-STYLE file and the other READMEs: libkmod/README
  73 and testsuite/README.
  74
  75 Compatibility with module-init-tools
  76 ====================================
  77
  78 kmod replaces module-init-tools, which is end-of-life. Most of its tools are
  79 rewritten on top of libkmod so it can be used as a drop in replacements.
  80 Somethings however were changed. Reasons vary from "the feature was already
  81 long deprecated on module-init-tools" to "it would be too much trouble to
  82 support it".
  83
  84 There are several features that are being added in kmod, but we don't
  85 keep track of them here.
  86
  87 modprobe
  88 --------
  89
  90 * 'modprobe -l' was marked as deprecated and does not exist anymore
  91
  92 * 'modprobe -t' is gone, together with 'modprobe -l'
  93
  94 * modprobe doesn't parse configuration files with names not ending in
  95   '.alias' or '.conf'. modprobe used to warn about these files.
  96
  97 * modprobe doesn't parse 'config' and 'include' commands in configuration
  98   files.
  99
 100 * modprobe from m-i-t does not honour softdeps for install commands. E.g.:
 101   config:
 102
 103         install bli "echo bli"
 104         install bla "echo bla"
 105         softdep bla pre: bli
 106
 107   With m-i-t, the output of 'modprobe --show-depends bla' will be:
 108         install "echo bla"
 109
 110   While with kmod:
 111         install "echo bli"
 112         install "echo bla"
 113
 114 * kmod doesn't dump the configuration as is in the config files. Instead it
 115   dumps the configuration as it was parsed. Therefore, comments and file names
 116   are not dumped, but on the good side we know what the exact configuration
 117   kmod is using. We did this because if we only want to know the entire content
 118   of configuration files, it's enough to use find(1) in modprobe.d directories
 119
 120 depmod
 121 ------
 122
 123 * there's no 'depmod -m' option: legacy modules.*map files are gone
 124
 125 lsmod
 126 -----
 127
 128 * module-init-tools used /proc/modules to parse module info. kmod uses
 129   /sys/module/*, but there's a fallback to /proc/modules if the latter isn't
 130   available