MODPROBE(8)                        modprobe                        MODPROBE(8)

NAME
       modprobe - Add and remove modules from the Linux Kernel

SYNOPSIS
       modprobe [-v] [-V] [-C config-file] [-n] [-i] [-q] [-b] [modulename]
                [module parameters...]

       modprobe [-r] [-v] [-n] [-i] [modulename...]

       modprobe [-c]

       modprobe [--dump-modversions] [filename]

DESCRIPTION
       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/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.

OPTIONS
       -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, --showconfig
           Dump out the effective configuration from the config directory and
           exit.

       --dump-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.

       -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, --show
           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 historical reasons both
           --dry-run and --show actually mean the same thing and are
           interchangeable.

       -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, --resolve-alias
           Print all module names matching an alias. This can be useful for
           debugging module alias problems.

       -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.

       -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.

ENVIRONMENT
       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.

COPYRIGHT
       This manual page originally Copyright 2002, Rusty Russell, IBM
       Corporation.

SEE ALSO
       modprobe.d(5), insmod(8), rmmod(8), lsmod(8), modinfo(8), depmod(8)

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                              2025-03-28                       MODPROBE(8)