Kernel

Find kernel version

uname -r 6.8.0-49-generic

Kernel modules

A loadable kernel module (LKM) is software that tells the kernel where to find a device and what to do with it.

The modules available for each kernel release are in /lib/modules:

ls -l /lib/modules total 8 drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 4096 Nov 2 17:14 6.8.0-48-generic drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 4096 Nov 20 00:51 6.8.0-49-generic # get available modules for your kernel version ls -l /lib/modules/$(uname -r) total 7168 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 39 Nov 1 10:56 build -> /usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.0-49-generic drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Nov 1 10:56 initrd drwxr-xr-x. 17 root root 4096 Nov 20 00:50 kernel -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1663327 Nov 20 00:51 modules.alias -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1620199 Nov 20 00:51 modules.alias.bin -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9714 Nov 1 10:56 modules.builtin -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 10690 Nov 20 00:51 modules.builtin.alias.bin -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 11907 Nov 20 00:51 modules.builtin.bin -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 87700 Nov 1 10:56 modules.builtin.modinfo -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 863202 Nov 20 00:51 modules.dep -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1144982 Nov 20 00:51 modules.dep.bin -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 353 Nov 20 00:51 modules.devname -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 262876 Nov 1 10:56 modules.order -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2755 Nov 20 00:51 modules.softdep -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 731722 Nov 20 00:51 modules.symbols -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 889131 Nov 20 00:51 modules.symbols.bin drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Nov 20 00:50 vdso

lsmod

Get loaded kernel modules:

lsmod Module Size Used by sch_netem 24576 0 ib_core 507904 0 tls 155648 0 ...

modprobe

Load kernel modules, and get all available kernel modules:

# get total count modprobe -c | wc -l 51317 # load a module modprobe <module-name>

rmmod

Remove a kernel module:

rmmod <module-name>