DEPMOD(8)                                                      depmod                                                     DEPMOD(8)

NAME
       depmod - Generate modules.dep and map files.

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

       depmod [-e] [-E Module.symvers] [-F System.map] [-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 complex.

       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 systemd-tmpfiles).

       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).

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 directory at /etc/depmod.d/.

       -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 perfect world), but this assumption can break especially 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.

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

       -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.d(5), modprobe(8), modules.dep(5)

AUTHORS
       Jon Masters <jcm@jonmasters.org>
           Developer

       Robby Workman <rworkman@slackware.com>
           Developer

       Lucas De Marchi <lucas.de.marchi@gmail.com>
           Developer

kmod                                                         02/15/2023                                                   DEPMOD(8)