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