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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO | BUGS | AUTHORS | COLOPHON |
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MODPROBE(8) modprobe MODPROBE(8)
modprobe - Add and remove modules from the Linux Kernel
modprobe [-v] [-V] [-C config-file] [-n] [-i] [-q] [-b]
[modulename]
[module parameters...]
modprobe [-r] [-v] [-n] [-i] [modulename...]
modprobe [-c]
modprobe [--show-modversions] [filename]
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
/usr/local/lib/`uname -r` for all the modules and other files,
except for the optional configuration files (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 directory, --config directory
This option overrides the default configuration directory. See
modprobe.d(5).
This option is passed through install or remove commands to
other modprobe commands in the MODPROBE_OPTIONS environment
variable.
-c, --show-config
Print out the effective configuration from the config
directory and exit.
For compatibility reasons --showconfig is also accepted for
this option but will be removed after kmod 36.
--show-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.
For compatibility reasons --dump-modversions is also accepted
for this option but will be removed after kmod 36.
--show-exports
Print out a list of symbols exported by the module. This
option is commonly used to inspect the function list, while
investigating loading of modules with partial or missing
dependencies.
-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 to 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 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
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 compatibility reasons --show is also accepted for this
option but will be removed after kmod 36.
-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, --show-alias
Print all module names matching an alias. This can be useful
for debugging module alias problems.
For compatibility reasons --resolve-alias is also accepted for
this option but will be removed after kmod 36.
-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.
--remove-holders
This option causes modprobe to remove the mentioned module(s),
alongside other modules that depend on it/them - aka the
reverse dependency list. This options implies --remove.
For compatibility reasons --remove-dependencies is also
accepted for this option but will be removed after kmod 36.
-w TIMEOUT_MSEC, --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 version, --set-version 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.
The MODPROBE_OPTIONS environment variable can also be used to pass
command line arguments to modprobe. The format is intentionally
left undocumented, since the use by third-party tools and scripts
is discouraged.
The environment variable originates with the implementation of the
install rules.
This manual page originally Copyright 2002, Rusty Russell, IBM
Corporation.
modprobe.d(5), insmod(8), rmmod(8), lsmod(8), modinfo(8),
depmod(8)
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.
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.
This page is part of the kmod (userspace tools for managing kernel
modules) project. Information about the project can be found at
[unknown -- if you know, please contact man-pages@man7.org] If you
have a bug report for this manual page, send it to
linux-modules@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git repository
⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git⟩ on
2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
that was found in the repository was 2025-07-13.) If you discover
any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a
mail to man-pages@man7.org
kmod 2025-08-11 MODPROBE(8)
Pages that refer to this page: delete_module(2), init_module(2), sk98lin(4), modprobe.d(5), modules.dep(5), modules-load.d(5), sysctl.d(5), lvmthin(7), depmod(8), insmod(8), kmod(8), lsmod(8), modinfo(8), rmmod(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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