modprobe.dkmodDeveloperJonMastersjcm@jonmasters.orgDeveloperRobbyWorkmanrworkman@slackware.comDeveloperLucasDe Marchilucas.demarchi@profusion.mobimodprobe.d5modprobe.dConfiguration directory for modprobe/lib/modprobe.d/*.conf/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf/run/modprobe.d/*.confDESCRIPTIONBecause the modprobe command can add or
remove more than one module, due to modules having dependencies,
we need a method of specifying what options are to be used with
those modules. All files underneath the
/etc/modprobe.d directory which end with the
.conf extension specify those options as
required. They can also be used to create convenient aliases:
alternate names for a module, or they can override the normal
modprobe behavior altogether for those with
special requirements (such as inserting more than one module).
Note that module and alias names (like other module names) can
have - or _ in them: both are interchangeable throughout all the
module commands as underscore conversion happens automatically.
The format of and files under modprobe.d is
simple: one command per line, with blank lines and lines starting
with '#' ignored (useful for adding comments). A '\' at the end
of a line causes it to continue on the next line, which makes the
file a bit neater.
COMMANDSalias wildcardmodulename
This allows you to give alternate names for a module. For example:
"alias my-mod really_long_modulename" means you can use "modprobe
my-mod" instead of "modprobe really_long_modulename". You can also
use shell-style wildcards, so "alias my-mod*
really_long_modulename" means that "modprobe my-mod-something" has
the same effect. You can't have aliases to other aliases (that way
lies madness), but aliases can have options, which will be added to
any other options.
Note that modules can also contain their own aliases, which you can
see using modinfo. These aliases are used as a
last resort (ie. if there is no real module,
install, remove, or
alias command in the configuration).
blacklist modulename
Modules can contain their own aliases: usually these are aliases
describing the devices they support, such as "pci:123...". These
"internal" aliases can be overridden by normal "alias" keywords,
but there are cases where two or more modules both support the same
devices, or a module invalidly claims to support a device that it
does not: the blacklist keyword indicates that
all of that particular module's internal aliases are to be ignored.
install modulenamecommand...
This command instructs modprobe to run your
command instead of inserting the module in the kernel as normal.
The command can be any shell command: this allows you to do any
kind of complex processing you might wish. For example, if the
module "fred" works better with the module "barney" already
installed (but it doesn't depend on it, so
modprobe won't automatically load it), you could
say "install fred /sbin/modprobe barney; /sbin/modprobe
--ignore-install fred", which would do what you wanted. Note the
, which stops the second
modprobe from running the same
install command again. See also
remove below. The long term
future of this command as a solution to the problem of providing
additional module dependencies is not assured and it is intended to
replace this command with a warning about its eventual removal or
deprecation at some point in a future release. Its use complicates
the automated determination of module dependencies by distribution
utilities, such as mkinitrd (because these now need to somehow
interpret what the install commands might be
doing. In a perfect world, modules would provide all dependency
information without the use of this command and work is underway to
implement soft dependency support within the Linux kernel. If you use the string "$CMDLINE_OPTS" in the command, it will
be replaced by any options specified on the modprobe command line.
This can be useful because users expect "modprobe fred opt=1" to
pass the "opt=1" arg to the module, even if there's an install
command in the configuration file. So our above example becomes
"install fred /sbin/modprobe barney; /sbin/modprobe
--ignore-install fred $CMDLINE_OPTS"
options modulenameoption...
This command allows you to add options to the module
modulename (which might be an
alias) every time it is inserted into the kernel: whether
directly (using modprobemodulename or because the
module being inserted depends on this module.
All options are added together: they can come from an
option for the module itself, for an
alias, and on the command line.
remove modulenamecommand...
This is similar to the install command
above, except it is invoked when "modprobe -r" is run.
softdep modulename pre: modules... post: modules...
The softdep command allows you to specify soft,
or optional, module dependencies. modulename
can be used without these optional modules installed, but usually with
some features missing. For example, a driver for a storage HBA might
require another module be loaded in order to use management features.
pre-deps and post-deps modules are lists of names and/or aliases of other
modules that modprobe will attempt to install (or remove) in order
before and after the main module given in the
modulename argument.
Example: Assume "softdep c pre: a b post: d e" is provided in the
configuration. Running "modprobe c" is now equivalent to
"modprobe a b c d e" without the softdep.
Flags such as --use-blacklist are applied to all the specified
modules, while module parameters only apply to module c.
Note: if there are install or
remove commands with the same
modulename argument,
softdep takes precedence.
COMPATIBILITY
A future version of kmod will come with a strong warning to avoid use of
the install as explained above. This will happen once
support for soft dependencies in the kernel is complete. That support
will complement the existing softdep support within this utility by
providing such dependencies directly within the modules.
COPYRIGHT
This manual page originally Copyright 2004, Rusty Russell, IBM
Corporation. Maintained by Jon Masters and others.
SEE ALSOmodprobe8,
modules.dep5