Embedded Linux for Developers

Loading kernel modules

You can load, unload and list modules using the simple insmod, lsmod, and rmmod commands. Here they are shown loading the dummy driver:

# insmod /lib/modules/4.1.10/kernel/drivers/dummy.ko
# lsmod
dummy 1248 0 - Live 0xbf009000 (O)
# rmmod dummy

If the module is placed in a subdirectory in /lib/modules/<kernel release>, as in the example, you can create a modules dependency database using the command depmod:

# depmod -a
# ls /lib/modules/4.1.10/
kernel               modules.builtin.bin  modules.order
modules.alias        modules.dep          modules.softdep
modules.alias.bin    modules.dep.bin      modules.symbols
modules.builtin      modules.devname      modules.symbols.bin

The information in the module.* files is used by the command modprobe to locate a module by name rather ...