depmod(8)						      System Manager's Manual							 depmod(8)

NAME

       depmod -- program to generate modules.dep and map files.

SYNOPSIS

       depmod [-b basedir]  [-e]  [-E Module.symvers]  [-F System.map]	[-m]  [-n]  [-v]  [-A]	[-P prefix]  [-w]  [version]

       depmod [-e]  [-E Module.symvers]  [-F System.map]  [-m]	[-n]  [-v]  [-P prefix]  [-w [	     [version]	       [filename ...]	   ] ]

DESCRIPTION

       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 com-
       plex.

       depmod  creates a list of module dependencies by reading each module under /lib/modules/version and determining what symbols it exports and
       what symbols it needs.  By default, this list is written to modules.dep, and a binary hashed version named  modules.dep.bin,  in  the  same
       directory.   If	filenames  are	given  on the command line, only those modules are examined (which is rarely useful unless all modules are
       listed).  depmod also creates a list of symbols provided by modules in the file named modules.symbols	   and its binary hashed  version,
       modules.symbols.bin.  Finally, depmod will output a file named modules.devname if modules supply special device names (devname) that should
       be populated in /dev on boot (by a utility such as udev).

       If a version is provided, then that kernel version's module directory is used rather than the current kernel version (as returned by  uname
       -r).

       depmod will also generate various legacy map files in the output directory for use by the older hotplug infrastructure. These map files are
       largely deprecated.

OPTIONS

       -a --all  Probe all modules. This option is enabled by default if no file names are given in the command-line.

       -A --quick
		 This option scans to see if any modules are newer than the modules.dep file before any work is done: if not,  it  silently  exits
		 rather than regenerating the files.

       -b basedir --basedir basedir
		 If  your  modules  are  not  currently  in  the (normal) directory /lib/modules/version, but in a staging area, you can specify a
		 basedir which is prepended to the directory name.  This basedir is stripped from the resulting modules.dep file, so it  is  ready
		 to  be  moved	into the normal location. Use this option if you are a distribution vendor who needs to pre-generate the meta-data
		 files rather than running depmod again later.

       -C --config file or directory
		 This option overrides the default configuration file at /etc/depmod.conf (or the /etc/depmod.d/ directory if that is not found).

       -e --errsyms
		 When combined with the -F option, this reports any symbols which a module needs which are not supplied by other  modules  or  the
		 kernel.   Normally,  any symbols not provided by modules are assumed to be provided by the kernel (which should be true in a per-
		 fect world), but this assumption can break espencially when additionally updated third party drivers are not correctly  installed
		 or were built incorrectly.

       -E --symvers
		 When combined with the -e option, this reports any symbol versions supplied by modules that do not match with the symbol versions
		 provided by the kernel in its Module.symvers.	This option is mutually incompatible with -F.

       -F --filesyms System.map
		 Supplied with the System.map produced when the kernel was built, this allows the -e option to report  unresolved  symbols.   This
		 option is mutually incompatible with -E.

       -h --help Print the help message and exit.

       -m	 This  overrides  any possible configuration file setting of make_map_files and forces the generation of legacy map files, such as
		 modules.pcimap.

       -n --dry-run
		 This sends the resulting modules.dep and the various map files to standard output rather than writing them into the module direc-
		 tory.

       -P	 Some architectures prefix symbols with an extraneous character.  This specifies a prefix character (for example '_') to ignore.

       -v --verbose
		 In  verbose  mode, depmod will print (to stdout) all the symbols each module depends on and the module's file name which provides
		 that symbol.

       -V --version
		 Show version of program and exit. See below for caveats when run on older kernels.

       -w	 Warn on duplicate dependencies, aliases, symbol versions, etc.

COPYRIGHT

       This manual page originally Copyright 2002, Rusty Russell, IBM Corporation. Portions Copyright Jon Masters, and others.

SEE ALSO

       depmod.conf(5), depmod.d(5), modprobe(8), modules.dep(5)

																	 depmod(8)