MODPROBE.D(5) modprobe.d MODPROBE.D(5)
NAME
modprobe.d - Configuration directory for modprobe
SYNOPSIS
/etc/modprobe.d/*.conf
/run/modprobe.d/*.conf
/usr/local/lib/modprobe.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/modprobe.d/*.conf
/lib/modprobe.d/*.conf
DESCRIPTION
Because the modprobe command can add or remove more than one module, due
to modules having dependencies, we need a method of specifying what op-
tions are to be used with those modules. One can also use them to create
convenient aliases: alternate names for a module, or they can override
the normal modprobe behavior altogether for those with special require-
ments (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.
CONFIGURATION FORMAT
The configuration files contain 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 files a bit neater.
See the COMMANDS section below for more.
CONFIGURATION DIRECTORIES AND PRECEDENCE
Configuration files are read from directories in listed in SYNOPSIS in
that order of precedence. Once a file of a given filename is loaded, any
file of the same name in subsequent directories is ignored.
All configuration files are sorted in lexicographic order, regardless of
the directory they reside in. Configuration files can either be com-
pletely replaced (by having a new configuration file with the same name
in a directory of higher priority) or partially replaced (by having a
configuration file that is ordered later).
NOTE: The configuration directories may be altered via the MODPROBE_OP-
TIONS environment variable. See the ENVIRONMENT section in modprobe(8).
COMMANDS
alias wildcard modulename
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 de-
scribing the devices they support, such as "pci:123...". These "in-
ternal" aliases can be overridden by normal "alias" keywords, but
there are cases where two or more modules both support the same de-
vices, 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 modulename command...
This command instructs modprobe to run your command instead of in-
serting 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 --ignore-install, 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 re-
placed 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 $CMD-
LINE_OPTS"
options modulename option...
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 modprobe modulename) 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 modulename command...
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 argu-
ment.
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 ap-
plied to all the specified modules, while module parameters only ap-
ply to module c.
Note: if there are install or remove commands with the same module-
name argument, softdep takes precedence.
weakdep modulename modules...
The weakdep command allows you to specify weak module dependencies.
Those are similar to pre softdep, with the difference that userspace
doesn't attempt to load that dependency before the specified module.
Instead the kernel may request one or multiple of them during module
probe, depending on the hardware it's binding to. The purpose of
weak module is to allow a driver to specify that a certain depen-
dency may be needed, so it should be present in the filesystem (e.g.
in initramfs) when that module is probed.
Example: Assume "weakdep c a b". A program creating an initramfs
knows it should add a, b, and c to the filesystem since a and b may
be required/desired at runtime. When c is loaded and is being
probed, it may issue calls to request_module() causing a or b to
also be loaded.
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 dependen-
cies directly within the modules.
COPYRIGHT
This manual page originally Copyright 2004, Rusty Russell, IBM Corpora-
tion.
SEE ALSO
modprobe(8), modules.dep(5)
BUGS
Please direct any bug reports to kmod's issue tracker at
https://github.com/kmod-project/kmod/issues/ alongside with version
used, steps to reproduce the problem and the expected outcome.
AUTHORS
Numerous contributions have come from the linux-modules mailing list
<linux-modules@vger.kernel.org> and Github. If you have a clone of
kmod.git itself, the output of git-shortlog(1) and git-blame(1) can show
you the authors for specific parts of the project.
Lucas De Marchi <lucas.de.marchi@gmail.com> is the current maintainer of
the project.
kmod 2025-04-25 MODPROBE.D(5)
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