[ Prev ] [ Index ] [ Next ]

    This document is a very quick dump of module management in FC5, it needs reworking
    and perhaps should be incorprated in another document?
    *** REFACTOR AND MERGE ***

1. FC5 driver management
The module-init-tools.i386 package is used to load and unload drivers, which are named
"modules" in linux. Fedora Core uses modprobe(1) and rmmod(1) to load and unload a
module, which it locates by looking for the corresponding .ko file in
/lib/modules/`uname -r`. The package module-init-tools.i386 contains the required
binaries for module management.

    bash # rpm -qa |grep module-init-tools
    module-init-tools-3.2-0.pre9.2.2.1
    bash # rpm -ql module-init-tools-3.2-0.pre9.2.2.1
        /etc/modprobe.d
        /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf.dist
        /sbin/depmod
        /sbin/generate-modprobe.conf
        /sbin/insmod
        /sbin/insmod.static
        /sbin/lsmod
        /sbin/modinfo
        /sbin/modprobe
        /sbin/rmmod

FC5 loads user modules by executing all scripts in /etc/sysconfig/modules. Typically, the script should
do a modprobe to install the module. E.g., to load a module "foo.ko",

    bash # cd /etc/sysconfig/modules
    bash # echo "modprobe foo.ko" > foo.module
    bash # chmod 755 foo.module

Then on boot, /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit will look for all executable files in /etc/sysconfig/modules and exec them.

QUESTION
A. What's the order? Is /etc/sysconfig/modules loaded after /etc/modprobe.conf?
B. What's the deal with /etc/modprobe.d?
C. What's the story with the "alias" commands (in /etc/modprobe.conf and /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf.dist)
D. How does the "blacklist" work?

FC5 module loading from mail list http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=431575
After reading "/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit" I found that usermodules should lie in "/etc/sysconfig/modules/*.modules" as executables, and did (echo "modprobe ndiswrapper" >> my.modules; chmod ugo+x my.modules). Now NetworkManager starts the wireless automatically after I log in. Now I'm satisfied, but if anyone have a more proper solution, or can confirm that this was the proper way to do it, I'm listening:-)


Backlinks: