Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 12:57:34 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: John Smith <cr@eta.ee.fit.edu>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: /dev/lkm Message-ID: <19990224125734.V93492@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990223163357.23290A-100000@eta.ee.fit.edu>; from John Smith on Tue, Feb 23, 1999 at 04:38:26PM -0500 References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990223163357.23290A-100000@eta.ee.fit.edu>
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[moved to -questions]
On Tuesday, 23 February 1999 at 16:38:26 -0500, John Smith wrote:
>
>
> I am on 3.1; and when I try to do modload. i get /dev/lkm not
> configured.
>
> Do I need to compile my kernel with a special keyword so that it
> supports loadable kernel modules, (/dev/lkm exists); or lkm does not exist
> anymore?
This doesn't really qualify as an in-depth technical discussion, so
I'm moving it to -questions.
LKMs have gone away in 3.1, though support for them remains. They've
been replaced by klds, for which unfortunately not much documentation
exists. I'm attaching something that is going into a revised version
of ``The Complete FreeBSD''.
Greg
Kernel loadable modules
_______________________
Older versions of FreeBSD supplied Loadable Kernel Modules or LKMs, object
files which could be loaded and executed in the kernel while the kernel was
running. We discussed them in passing on page 294.
The ELF kernel and the new bootstrap of FreeBSD version 3 allow you to load
additional modules at boot time. To do so, however, the format of the modules
needed to be changed. To avoid (too much) confusion, the name changed from
loadable kernel module to kernel loadable module (kld). FreeBSD still supports
LKMs as well, so klds are stored in a different directory and loaded and
unloaded by different programs:
Table E-1. Differences between LKMs and klds
+---------------+-----------+-----------+
|Parameter | LKM | kld |
+---------------+-----------+-----------+
|Directory | /lkm | /modules |
|Load program | modload | kldload |
|Unload program | modunload | kldunload |
|List program | modstat | kldstat |
+---------------+-----------+-----------+
Some other details have changed as well. kldload knows an internal path for
finding klds, so you don't need to specify the path. It also assumes that the
name of the kld ends in .ko, and you don't need to specify that either. For
example, to load the Linux emulator as an LKM, you might have entered:
# modload /lkm/linux_mod.o
To load the kld, you could enter:
# kldload linux
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