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<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
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<refname>modprobe.conf</refname><refname>modprobe.d</refname> <refpurpose>Configuration file/directory for modprobe</refpurpose>
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<refname>modprobe.d</refname><refname>modprobe.conf</refname> <refpurpose>Configuration directory/file for modprobe</refpurpose>
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<title>DESCRIPTION</title>
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<para>Because the <command>modprobe</command> command can add or
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remove extra more than one module, due to module dependencies,
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remove more than one module, due to module dependencies,
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we need a method of specifying what options are to be used with
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those modules. <filename>/etc/modprobe.conf</filename> (or, if that does not exist, all files under the <filename>/etc/modprobe.d</filename> directory) specifies
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those options, as required. It can also be used to create
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convenient aliases: alternate names for a module. Finally, it
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can override the normal <command>modprobe</command> behavior
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altogether, for those with very special requirements (such as
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inserting more than one module).
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those modules. All files underneath the
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<filename>/etc/modprobe.d</filename> directory which end with the
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<filename>.conf</filename> extension specify those options as
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required. (the <filename>/etc/modprobe.conf</filename> file can
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also be used if it exists, but that will be removed in a future
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version). They can also be used to create convenient aliases:
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alternate names for a module, or they can override the normal
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<command>modprobe</command> behavior altogether for those with
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special requirements (such as inserting more than one module).
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Note that module and alias names (like other module names) can
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The format of <filename>modprobe.conf</filename> and files under <filename>modprobe.d</filename> is simple: one
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command per line, with blank lines and lines starting with #
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ignored (useful for adding comments). A \ at the end of a line
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The format of and files under <filename>modprobe.d</filename> and
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<filename>/etc/modprobe.conf</filename> is simple: one
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command per line, with blank lines and lines starting with '#'
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ignored (useful for adding comments). A '\' at the end of a line
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causes it to continue on the next line, which makes the file a
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The syntax is a simplification of <filename>modules.conf</filename>, used in 2.4 kernels and earlier.
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<title>COMMANDS</title>
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<replaceable>modulename</replaceable> (which might be an
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alias) every time it is inserted into the kernel: whether
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directly (using <command>modprobe</command>
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<replaceable>modulename</replaceable>, or because the
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<replaceable>modulename</replaceable> or because the
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module being inserted depends on this module.
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This is the most powerful primitive in
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<filename>modprobe.conf</filename>: it tells
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This is the most powerful primitive: it tells
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<command>modprobe</command> to run your command instead of
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inserting the module in the kernel as normal. The command
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can be any shell command: this allows you to do any kind
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of complex processing you might wish. For example, if the
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module "fred" worked better with the module "barney"
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already installed (but it didn't depend on it, so
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module "fred" works better with the module "barney"
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already installed (but it doesn't depend on it, so
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<command>modprobe</command> won't automatically load it),
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you could say "install fred /sbin/modprobe barney;
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/sbin/modprobe --ignore-install fred", which would do what
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you wanted. Note the <option>--ignore-install</option>,
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which stops the second <command>modprobe</command> from
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re-running the same <command>install</command> command.
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running the same <command>install</command> command again.
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See also <command>remove</command> below.
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You can also use <command>install</command> to make up
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modules which don't otherwise exist. For example:
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"install probe-ethernet /sbin/modprobe e100 ||
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/sbin/modprobe eepro100", which will try first the e100
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driver, then the eepro100 driver, when you do "modprobe
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/sbin/modprobe eepro100", which will first try to load the e100
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driver, and if it fails, then the eepro100 driver when you do "modprobe
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<term>include <replaceable>filename</replaceable>
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Using this command, you can include other configuration
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files, or whole directories, which is occasionally useful. Note that aliases in
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the included file will override aliases previously
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declared in the current file.
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<term>blacklist <replaceable>modulename</replaceable>
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<title>Backwards Compatibility</title>
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There is a <command>generate_modprobe.conf</command> program
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which should do a reasonable job of generating
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<filename>modprobe.conf</filename> from old (2.4 or 2.2)
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Although the syntax is similar to the older
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<filename>/etc/modules.conf</filename>, there are many features
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missing. There are two reasons for this: firstly, install and
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remove commands can do just about anything, and secondly, the
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module-init-tools modprobe is designed to be simple enough that
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it can be easily replaced.
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With the complexity of actual module insertion reduced to three
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system calls (open, read, init_module), and the
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<filename>modules.dep</filename> file being simple and open,
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producing a more powerful modprobe variant can be done
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independently if there is a need.
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<title>COPYRIGHT</title>
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This manual page Copyright 2004, Rusty Russell, IBM Corporation.
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doc/modprobe.conf.sgml
