modprobe intelligently adds or removes a module from the
Linux kernel: note that for convenience, there is no difference between _
and - in module names (automatic underscore conversion is performed).
modprobe looks in the module directory /lib/modules/`uname -r` for
all the modules and other files, except for the optional configuration files
in the /etc/modprobe.d directory (see modprobe.d(5)). modprobe
will also use module options specified on the kernel command line in the
form of <module>.<option> and blacklists in the form of
modprobe.blacklist=<module>.
Note that unlike in 2.4 series Linux kernels (which are not
supported by this tool) this version of modprobe does not do anything
to the module itself: the work of resolving symbols and understanding
parameters is done inside the kernel. So module failure is sometimes
accompanied by a kernel message: see dmesg(8).
modprobe expects an up-to-date modules.dep.bin file as
generated by the corresponding depmod utility shipped along with
modprobe (see depmod(8)). This file lists what other modules
each module needs (if any), and modprobe uses this to add or remove
these dependencies automatically.
If any arguments are given after the modulename, they are
passed to the kernel (in addition to any options listed in the configuration
file).
When loading modules, modulename can also be a path to the
module. If the path is relative, it must explicitly start with
"./". Note that this may fail when using a path to a module with
dependencies not matching the installed depmod database.
-a, --all
Insert all module names on the command line.
-b, --use-blacklist
This option causes modprobe to apply the
blacklist commands in the configuration files (if any) to module names
as well. It is usually used by udev(7).
-C, --config
This option overrides the default configuration directory
(/etc/modprobe.d).
This option is passed through install or remove
commands to other modprobe commands in the MODPROBE_OPTIONS
environment variable.
-c, --showconfig
Dump out the effective configuration from the config
directory and exit.
--dump-modversions
Print out a list of module versioning information
required by a module. This option is commonly used by distributions in order
to package up a Linux kernel module using module versioning deps.
-d, --dirname
Root directory for modules, / by default.
--first-time
Normally, modprobe will succeed (and do nothing)
if told to insert a module which is already present or to remove a module
which isn't present. This is ideal for simple scripts; however, more
complicated scripts often want to know whether modprobe really did
something: this option makes modprobe fail in the case that it actually didn't
do anything.
--force-vermagic
Every module contains a small string containing important
information, such as the kernel and compiler versions. If a module fails to
load and the kernel complains that the "version magic" doesn't
match, you can use this option to remove it. Naturally, this check is there
for your protection, so using this option is dangerous unless you know what
you're doing.
This applies to any modules inserted: both the module (or alias)
on the command line and any modules on which it depends.
--force-modversion
When modules are compiled with CONFIG_MODVERSIONS set, a
section detailing the versions of every interfaced used by (or supplied by)
the module is created. If a module fails to load and the kernel complains that
the module disagrees about a version of some interface, you can use
"--force-modversion" to remove the version information altogether.
Naturally, this check is there for your protection, so using this option is
dangerous unless you know what you're doing.
This applies any modules inserted: both the module (or alias) on
the command line and any modules on which it depends.
-f, --force
Try to strip any versioning information from the module
which might otherwise stop it from loading: this is the same as using both
--force-vermagic and
--force-modversion. Naturally, these checks
are there for your protection, so using this option is dangerous unless you
know what you are doing.
This applies to any modules inserted: both the module (or alias)
on the command line and any modules it on which it depends.
-i, --ignore-install, --ignore-remove
This option causes modprobe to ignore
install and remove commands in the configuration file (if any)
for the module specified on the command line (any dependent modules are still
subject to commands set for them in the configuration file). Both
install and remove commands will currently be ignored when this
option is used regardless of whether the request was more specifically made
with only one or other (and not both) of --ignore-install or
--ignore-remove. See modprobe.d(5).
-n, --dry-run, --show
This option does everything but actually insert or delete
the modules (or run the install or remove commands). Combined with -v,
it is useful for debugging problems. For historical reasons both
--dry-run and --show actually mean the same thing and are
interchangeable.
-q, --quiet
With this flag, modprobe won't print an error
message if you try to remove or insert a module it can't find (and isn't an
alias or install/remove command). However, it will still return
with a non-zero exit status. The kernel uses this to opportunistically probe
for modules which might exist using request_module.
-R, --resolve-alias
Print all module names matching an alias. This can be
useful for debugging module alias problems.
-r, --remove
This option causes
modprobe to remove rather than
insert a module. If the modules it depends on are also unused,
modprobe
will try to remove them too. Unlike insertion, more than one module can be
specified on the command line (it does not make sense to specify module
parameters when removing modules).
There is usually no reason to remove modules, but some buggy
modules require it. Your distribution kernel may not have been built to
support removal of modules at all.
-w, --wait=TIMEOUT_MSEC
This option causes modprobe -r to continue trying
to remove a module if it fails due to the module being busy, i.e. its refcount
is not 0 at the time the call is made. Modprobe tries to remove the module
with an incremental sleep time between each tentative up until the maximum
wait time in milliseconds passed in this option.
-S, --set-version
Set the kernel version, rather than using uname(2)
to decide on the kernel version (which dictates where to find the
modules).
--show-depends
List the dependencies of a module (or alias), including
the module itself. This produces a (possibly empty) set of module filenames,
one per line, each starting with "insmod" and is typically used by
distributions to determine which modules to include when generating
initrd/initramfs images. Install commands which apply are shown
prefixed by "install". It does not run any of the install commands.
Note that modinfo(8) can be used to extract dependencies of a module
from the module itself, but knows nothing of aliases or install
commands.
-s, --syslog
This option causes any error messages to go through the
syslog mechanism (as LOG_DAEMON with level LOG_NOTICE) rather than to standard
error. This is also automatically enabled when stderr is unavailable.
This option is passed through install or remove
commands to other modprobe commands in the MODPROBE_OPTIONS
environment variable.
-V, --version
Show version of program and exit.
-v, --verbose
Print messages about what the program is doing. Usually
modprobe only prints messages if something goes wrong.
This option is passed through install or remove
commands to other modprobe commands in the MODPROBE_OPTIONS
environment variable.