Linux "depmod" Command Line Options and Examples
Generate modules.dep and map files.
Linux kernel modules can provide services (called "symbols") for other modules to use (using one of the EXPORT_SYMBOL variants in the code). If a second module uses this symbol, that second module clearly depends on the first module. These dependencies can get quite complex.
Usage:
depmod [-b basedir] [-e] [-E Module.symvers] [-F System.map] [-n] [-v] [-A] [-P prefix] [-w] [version]
Command Line Options:
-a
Probe all modules. This option is enabled by default if no file names are given in the command-line.
depmod -a ...
-A
This option scans to see if any modules are newer than the modules.dep file before any work is done: if not, it silently exitsrather than regenerating the files.
depmod -A ...
-b
If your modules are not currently in the (normal) directory /lib/modules/version, but in a staging area, you can specify abasedir which is prepended to the directory name. This basedir is stripped from the resulting modules.dep file, so it is ready tobe moved into the normal location. Use this option if you are a distribution vendor who needs to pre-generate the meta-data filesrather than running depmod again later.
depmod -b ...
-C
This option overrides the default configuration directory at /etc/depmod.d/.
depmod -C ...
-e
When combined with the -F option, this reports any symbols which a module needs which are not supplied by other modules or thekernel. Normally, any symbols not provided by modules are assumed to be provided by the kernel (which should be true in a perfectworld), but this assumption can break especially when additionally updated third party drivers are not correctly installed orwere built incorrectly.
depmod -e ...
-E
When combined with the -e option, this reports any symbol versions supplied by modules that do not match with the symbol versionsprovided by the kernel in its Module.symvers. This option is mutually incompatible with -F.
depmod -E ...
-F
Supplied with the System.map produced when the kernel was built, this allows the -e option to report unresolved symbols. Thisoption is mutually incompatible with -E.
depmod -F ...
-h
Print the help message and exit.
depmod -h ...
-n
This sends the resulting modules.dep and the various map files to standard output rather than writing them into the moduledirectory.
depmod -n ...
-P
Some architectures prefix symbols with an extraneous character. This specifies a prefix character (for example '_') to ignore.
depmod -P ...
-v
In verbose mode, depmod will print (to stdout) all the symbols each module depends on and the module's file name which providesthat symbol.
depmod -v ...
-V
Show version of program and exit. See below for caveats when run on older kernels.
depmod -V ...
-w
Warn on duplicate dependencies, aliases, symbol versions, etc.COPYRIGHTThis manual page originally Copyright 2002, Rusty Russell, IBM Corporation. Portions Copyright Jon Masters, and others.
depmod -w ...