Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition By Alessandro Rubini & Jonathan Corbet 2nd Edition June 2001 0-59600-008-1, Order Number: 0081 586 pages, $39.95

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Chapter 11
kmod and Advanced Modularization

Contents:

Loading Modules on Demand
Intermodule Communication
Version Control in Modules
Backward Compatibility
Quick Reference

In this second part of the book, we discuss more advanced topics than we've seen up to now. Once again, we start with modularization.

The introduction to modularization in Chapter 2, "Building and Running Modules" was only part of the story; the kernel and the modutils package support some advanced features that are more complex than we needed earlier to get a basic driver up and running. The features that we talk about in this chapter include the kmod process and version support inside modules (a facility meant to save you from recompiling your modules each time you upgrade your kernel). We also touch on how to run user-space helper programs from within kernel code.

The implementation of demand loading of modules has changed significantly over time. This chapter discusses the 2.4 implementation, as usual. The sample code works, as far as possible, on the 2.0 and 2.2 kernels as well; we cover the differences at the end of the chapter.

Loading Modules on Demand

To make it easier for users to load and unload modules, to avoid wasting kernel memory by keeping drivers in core when they are not in use, and to allow the creation of "generic'' kernels that can support a wide variety of hardware, Linux offers support for automatic loading and unloading of modules. To exploit this feature, you need to enable kmod support when you configure the kernel before you compile it; most kernels from distributors come with kmod enabled. This ability to request additional modules when they are needed is particularly useful for drivers using module stacking.

The idea behind kmod is simple, yet effective. Whenever the kernel tries to access certain types of resources and finds them unavailable, it makes a special kernel call to the kmod subsystem instead of simply returning an error. If kmod succeeds in making the resource available by loading one or more modules, the kernel continues working; otherwise, it returns the error. Virtually any resource can be requested this way: char and block drivers, filesystems, line disciplines, network protocols, and so on.

One example of a driver that benefits from demand loading is the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) sound driver suite, which should (someday) replace the current sound implementation (Open Sound System, or OSS) in the Linux kernel.[42] ALSA is split into many pieces. The set of core code that every system needs is loaded first. Additional pieces get loaded depending on both the installed hardware (which sound card is present) and the desired functionality (MIDI sequencer, synthesizer, mixer, OSS compatibility, etc.). Thus, a large and complicated system can be broken down into components, with only the necessary parts being actually present in the running system.

[42]The ALSA drivers can be found at www.alsa-project.org.

Another common use of automatic module loading is to make a "one size fits all'' kernel to package with distributions. Distributors want their kernels to support as much hardware as possible. It is not possible, however, to simply configure in every conceivable driver; the resulting kernel would be too large to load (and very wasteful of system memory), and having that many drivers trying to probe for hardware would be a near-certain way to create conflicts and confusion. With automatic loading, the kernel can adapt itself to the hardware it finds on each individual system.

Requesting Modules in the Kernel

Any kernel-space code can request the loading of a module when needed, by invoking a facility known as kmod. kmod was initially implemented as a separate, standalone kernel process that handled module loading requests, but it has long since been simplified by not requiring the separate process context. To use kmod, you must include <linux/kmod.h> in your driver source.

To request the loading of a module, call request_module:

int request_module(const char *module_name);

The module_name can either be the name of a specific module file or the name of a more generic capability; we'll look more closely at module names in the next section. The return value from request_module will be 0, or one of the usual negative error codes if something goes wrong.

Note that request_module is synchronous -- it will sleep until the attempt to load the module has completed. This means, of course, that request_module cannot be called from interrupt context. Note also that a successful return from request_module does not guarantee that the capability you were after is now available. The return value indicates that request_module was successful in running modprobe, but does not reflect the success status of modprobe itself. Any number of problems or configuration errors can lead request_module to return a success status when it has not loaded the module you needed.

Thus the proper usage of request_module usually requires testing for the existence of a needed capability twice:

if ( (ptr = look_for_feature()) == NULL) {
    /* if feature is missing, create request string */
    sprintf(modname, "fmt-for-feature-%i\n", featureid);
    request_module(modname); /* and try lo load it */
}
/* Check for existence of the feature again; error if missing */
if ( (ptr = look_for_feature()) == NULL)
    return -ENODEV;

The first check avoids redundant calls to request_module. If the feature is not available in the running kernel, a request string is generated and request_module is used to look for it. The final check makes sure that the required feature has become available.

The User-Space Side

The actual task of loading a module requires help from user space, for the simple reason that it is far easier to implement the required degree of configurability and flexibility in that context. When the kernel code calls request_module, a new "kernel thread'' process is created, which runs a helper program in the user context. This program is called modprobe; we have seen it briefly earlier in this book.

modprobe can do a great many things. In the simplest case, it just calls insmodwith the name of a module as passed to request_module. Kernel code, however, will often call request_module with a more abstract name representing a needed capability, such as scsi_hostadapter; modprobe will then find and load the correct module. modprobe can also handle module dependencies; if a requested module requires yet another module to function, modprobe will load both -- assuming that depmod -a was run after the modules have been installed.[43]

[43]Most distributions run depmod -a automatically at boot time, so you don't need to worry about that unless you installed new modules after you rebooted. See the modprobe documentation for more details.

The modprobe utility is configured by the file /etc/modules.conf.[44] See the modules.conf manpage for the full list of things that can appear in this file. Here is an overview of the most common sorts of entries:

[44]On older systems, this file is often called /etc/conf.modules instead. That name still works, but its use is deprecated.

path[misc]=directory

This directive tells modprobe that miscellaneous modules can be found in the miscsubdirectory under the given directory. Other paths worth setting include boot, which points to a directory of modules that should be loaded at boot time, and toplevel, which gives a top-level directory under which a tree of module subdirectories may be found. You almost certainly want to include a separate keep directive as well.

keep

Normally, a path directive will cause modprobe to discard all other paths (including the defaults) that it may have known about. By placing a keep before any path directives, you can cause modprobe to add new paths to the list instead of replacing it.

alias alias_name real_name

Causes modprobe to load the module real_name when asked to load alias_name. The alias name usually identifies a specific capability; it has values such as scsi_hostadapter, eth0, or sound. This is the means by which generic requests ("a driver for the first Ethernet card'') get mapped into specific modules. Alias lines are usually created by the system installation process; once it has figured out what hardware a specific system has, it generates the appropriate alias entries to get the right drivers loaded.

options [-k] module opts

Provides a set of options (opts) for the given module when it is loaded. If the -k flag is provided, the module will not be automatically removed by a modprobe -r run.

pre-install module command

post-install module command

pre-remove module command

post-remove module command

The first two specify a command to be run either before or after the given module is installed; the second two run the command before or after module removal. These directives are useful for causing extra user-space processing to happen or for running a required daemon process. The command should be given as a full pathname to avoid possible problems.

Note that, for the removal commands to be run, the module must be removed with modprobe. They will not be run if the module is removed with rmmod, or if the system goes down (gracefully or otherwise).

modprobe supports far more directives than we have listed here, but the others are generally only needed in complicated situations.

A typical /etc/modules.conf looks like this:

alias scsi_hostadapter aic7xxx
alias eth0 eepro100
pre-install pcmcia_core /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia start
options short irq=1
alias sound es1370

This file tells modprobe which drivers to load to make the SCSI system, Ethernet, and sound cards work. It also ensures that if the PCMCIA drivers are loaded, a startup script is invoked to run the card services daemon. Finally, an option is provided to be passed to the short driver.

Module Loading and Security

The loading of a module into the kernel has obvious security implications, since the loaded code runs at the highest possible privilege level. For this reason, it is important to be very careful in how you work with the module-loading system.

When editing the modules.conf file, one should always keep in mind that anybody who can load kernel modules has complete control over the system. Thus, for example, any directories added to the load path should be very carefully protected, as should the modules.conf file itself.

Note that insmod will normally refuse to load any modules that are not owned by the root account; this behavior is an attempt at a defense against an attacker who obtains write access to a module directory. You can override this check with an option to insmod (or a modules.conf line), but doing so reduces the security of your system.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the module name parameter that you pass to request_module eventually ends up on the modprobe command line. If that module name is provided by a user-space program in any way, it must be very carefully validated before being handed off to request_module. Consider, for example, a system call that configures network interfaces. In response to an invocation of ifconfig, this system call tells request_module to load the driver for the (user-specified) interface. A hostile user can then carefully choose a fictitious interface name that will cause modprobe to do something improper. This is a real vulnerability that was discovered late in the 2.4.0-test development cycle; the worst problems have been cleaned up, but the system is still vulnerable to malicious module names.

Module Loading Example

Let's now try to use the demand-loading functions in practice. To this end, we'll use two modules called master and slave, found in the directory misc-modules in the source files provided on the O'Reilly FTP site.

In order to run this test code without installing the modules in the default module search path, you can add something like the following lines to your /etc/modules.conf:

keep
path[misc]=~rubini/driverBook/src/misc-modules

The slave module performs no function; it just takes up space until removed. The master module, on the other hand, looks like this:

 
#include <linux/kmod.h>
#include "sysdep.h"


int master_init_module(void)
{
    int r[2]; /* results */
    
    r[0]=request_module("slave");
    r[1]=request_module("nonexistent");
    printk(KERN_INFO "master: loading results are %i, %i\n", r[0],r[1]);
    return 0; /* success */
}

void master_cleanup_module(void)
{ }

At load time, master tries to load two modules: the slave module and one that doesn't exist. The printk messages reach your system logs and possibly the console. This is what happens in a system configured for kmod support when the daemon is active and the commands are issued on the text console:

morgana.root# depmod -a
morgana.root# insmod ./master.o
master: loading results are 0, 0
morgana.root# cat /proc/modules
slave                    248   0  (autoclean)
master                   740   0  (unused)
es1370                 34832   1 

Both the return value from request_module and the /proc/modules file (described in "Initialization and Shutdown" in Chapter 2, "Building and Running Modules") show that the slave module has been correctly loaded. Note, however, that the attempt to load nonexistent also shows a successful return value. Because modprobe was run, request_module returns success, regardless of what happened to modprobe.

A subsequent removal of master will produce results like the following:

morgana.root# rmmod master
morgana.root# cat /proc/modules
slave                    248   0  (autoclean)
es1370                 34832   1 

The slave module has been left behind in the kernel, where it will remain until the next module cleanup pass is done (which is often never on modern systems).

Running User-Mode Helper Programs

As we have seen, the request_module function runs a program in user mode (i.e., running as a separate process, in an unprivileged processor mode, and in user space) to help it get its job done. In the 2.3 development series, the kernel developers made the "run a user-mode helper'' capability available to the rest of the kernel code. Should your driver need to run a user-mode program to support its operations, this mechanism is the way to do it. Since it's part of the kmod implementation, we'll look at it here. If you are interested in this capability, a look at kernel/kmod.c is recommended; it's not much code and illustrates nicely the use of user-mode helpers.

The interface for running helper programs is fairly simple. As of kernel 2.4.0-test9, there is a function call_usermodehelper; it is used primarily by the hot-plug subsystem (i.e., for USB devices and such) to perform module loading and configuration tasks when a new device is attached to the system. Its prototype is:

int call_usermodehelper(char *path, char **argv, char **envp);

The arguments will be familiar: they are the name of the executable to run, arguments to pass to it (argv[0], by convention, is the name of the program itself), and the values of any environment variables. Both arrays must be terminated by NULL values, just like with the execve system call. call_usermodehelper will sleep until the program has been started, at which point it returns the status of the operation.

Helper programs run in this mode are actually run as children of a kernel thread called keventd. An important implication of this design is that there is no way for your code to know when the helper program has finished or what its exit status is. Running helper programs is thus a bit of an act of faith.

It is worth pointing out that truly legitimate uses of user-mode helper programs are rare. In most cases, it is better to set up a script to be run at module installation time that does all needed work as part of loading the module rather than to wire invocations of user-mode programs into kernel code. This sort of policy is best left to the user whenever possible.

Intermodule Communication

Very late in the pre-2.4.0 development series, the kernel developers added a new interface providing limited communication between modules. This intermodule scheme allows modules to register strings pointing to data of interest, which can be retrieved by other modules. We'll look briefly at this interface, using a variation of our master and slavemodules.

We use the same master module, but introduce a new slave module called inter. All inter does is to make a string and a function available under the name ime_string (ime means "intermodule example'') and ime_function; it looks, in its entirety, as follows:

 
static char *string = "inter says 'Hello World'";

void ime_function(const char *who)
{
    printk(KERN_INFO "inter: ime_function called by %s\n", who);
}

int ime_init(void)
{
    inter_module_register("ime_string", THIS_MODULE, string);
    inter_module_register("ime_function", THIS_MODULE, ime_function);
    return 0;
}

void ime_cleanup(void)
{
    inter_module_unregister("ime_string");
    inter_module_unregister("ime_function");
}

This code uses inter_module_register, which has this prototype:

void inter_module_register(const char *string, struct module *module,
                           const void *data);

string is the string other modules will use to find the data; module is a pointer to the module owning the data, which will almost always be THIS_MODULE; and data is a pointer to whatever data is to be shared. Note the use of a const pointer for the data; it is assumed that it will be exported in a read-only mode. inter_module_register will complain (via printk) if the given string is already registered.

When the data is no longer to be shared, the module should call inter_module_unregister to clean it up:

void inter_module_unregister(const char *string);

Two functions are exported that can access data shared via inter_module_register:

const void *inter_module_get(const char *string);

This function looks up the given string and returns the associated data pointer. If the string has not been registered, NULL is returned.

const void *inter_module_get_request(const char *string, const char *module);

This function is like inter_module_get with the added feature that, if the given string is not found, it will call request_module with the given module name and then will try again.

Both functions also increment the usage count for the module that registered the data. Thus, a pointer obtained with inter_module_get or inter_module_get_request will remain valid until it is explicitly released. At least, the module that created that pointer will not be unloaded during that time; it is still possible for the module itself to do something that will invalidate the pointer.

When you are done with the pointer, you must release it so that the other module's usage count will be decremented properly. A simple call to

void inter_module_put(const char *string);

will release the pointer, which should not be used after this call.

In our sample master module, we call inter_module_get_request to cause the inter module to be loaded and to obtain the two pointers. The string is simply printed, and the function pointer is used to make a call from master into inter. The additional code in master looks like this:

 
static const char *ime_string = NULL;
static void master_test_inter();

void master_test_inter()
{
    void (*ime_func)();
    ime_string = inter_module_get_request("ime_string", "inter");
    if (ime_string)
        printk(KERN_INFO "master: got ime_string '%s'\n", ime_string);
    else
        printk(KERN_INFO "master: inter_module_get failed");
    ime_func = inter_module_get("ime_function");
    if (ime_func) {
	(*ime_func)("master");
	inter_module_put("ime_function");
    }
}	

void master_cleanup_module(void)
{
    if (ime_string)
        inter_module_put("ime_string");
}

Note that one of the calls to inter_module_put is deferred until module cleanup time. This will cause the usage count of inter to be (at least) 1 until master is unloaded.

There are a few other worthwhile details to keep in mind when using the intermodule functions. First, they are available even in kernels that have been configured without support for loadable modules, so there is no need for a bunch of #ifdef lines to test for that case. The namespace implemented by the intermodule communication functions is global, so names should be chosen with care or conflicts will result. Finally, intermodule data is stored in a simple linked list; performance will suffer if large numbers of lookups are made or many strings are stored. This facility is intended for light use, not as a general dictionary subsystem.

Version Control in Modules

One of the main problems with modules is their version dependency, which was introduced in Chapter 2, "Building and Running Modules". The need to recompile the module against the headers of each kernel version being used can become a real pain when you run several custom modules, and recompiling is not even possible if you run a commercial module distributed in binary form.

Fortunately, the kernel developers found a flexible way to deal with version problems. The idea is that a module is incompatible with a different kernel version only if the software interface offered by the kernel has changed. The software interface, then, can be represented by a function prototype and the exact definition of all the data structures involved in the function call. Finally, a CRC algorithm[45] can be used to map all the information about the software interface to a single 32-bit number.

[45] CRC means "cyclic redundancy check,'' a way of generating a short, unique number from an arbitrary amount of data.

The issue of version dependencies is thus handled by mangling the name of each symbol exported by the kernel to include the checksum of all the information related to that symbol. This information is obtained by parsing the header files and extracting the information from them. This facility is optional and can be enabled at compilation time. Modular kernels shipped by Linux distributors usually have versioning support enabled.

For example, the symbol printk is exported to modules as something like printk_R12345678 when version support is enabled, where 12345678 is the hexadecimal representation of the checksum of the software interface used by the function. When a module is loaded into the kernel, insmod (or modprobe) can accomplish its task only if the checksum added to each symbol in the kernel matches the one added to the same symbol in the module.

There are some limitations to this scheme. A common source of surprises has been loading a module compiled for SMP systems into a uniprocessor kernel, or vice versa. Because numerous inline functions (e.g., spinlock operations) and symbols are defined differently for SMP kernels, it is important that modules and the kernel agree on whether they are built for SMP. Version 2.4 and recent 2.2 kernels throw an extra smp_ string onto each symbol when compiling for SMP to catch this particular case. There are still potential traps, however. Modules and the kernel can differ in which version of the compiler was used to build them, which view of memory they take, which version of the processor they were built for, and more. The version support scheme can catch the most common problems, but it still pays to be careful.

But let's see what happens in both the kernel and the module when version support is enabled:

• In the kernel itself, the symbol is not modified. The linking process happens in the usual way, and the symbol table of the vmlinux file looks the same as before.

• The public symbol table is built using the versioned names, and this is what appears in /proc/ksyms.

• The module must be compiled using the mangled names, which appear in the object files as undefined symbols.

• The loading program (insmod) matches the undefined symbols in the module with the public symbols in the kernel, thus using the version information.

Note that the kernel and the module must both agree on whether versioning is in use. If one is built for versioned symbols and the other isn't, insmod will refuse to load the module.

Using Version Support in Modules

Driver writers must add some explicit support if their modules are to work with versioning. Version control can be inserted in one of two places: in the makefile or in the source itself. Since the documentation of the modutils package describes how to do it in the makefile, we'll show you how to do it in the C source. The master module used to demonstrate how kmod works is able to support versioned symbols. The capability is automatically enabled if the kernel used to compile the module exploits version support.

The main facility used to mangle symbol names is the header <linux/modversions.h>, which includes preprocessor definitions for all the public kernel symbols. This file is generated as part of the kernel compilation (actually, "make depend'') process; if your kernel has never been built, or is built without version support, there will be little of interest inside. <linux/modversions.h> must be included before any other header file, so place it first if you put it directly in your driver source. The usual technique, however, is to tell gcc to prepend the file with a compilation command like:

gcc -DMODVERSIONS -include /usr/src/linux/include/linux/modversions.h...

After the header is included, whenever the module uses a kernel symbol, the compiler sees the mangled version.

To enable versioning in the module if it has been enabled in the kernel, we must make sure that CONFIG_MODVERSIONS has been defined in <linux/config.h>. That header controls what features are enabled (compiled) in the current kernel. Each CONFIG_ macro defined states that the corresponding option is active.[46]

[46]The CONFIG_ macros are defined in <linux/autoconf.h>. You should, however, include <linux/config.h> instead, because the latter is protected from double inclusion, and sources <linux/autoconf.h> internally.

The initial part of master.c, therefore, consists of the following lines:

 
#include <linux/config.h> /* retrieve the CONFIG_* macros */
#if defined(CONFIG_MODVERSIONS) && !defined(MODVERSIONS)
#  define MODVERSIONS /* force it on */
#endif

#ifdef MODVERSIONS
#  include <linux/modversions.h>
#endif

When compiling the file against a versioned kernel, the symbol table in the object file refers to versioned symbols, which match the ones exported by the kernel itself. The following screendump shows the symbol names stored in master.o. In the output of nm, T means "text,'' D means "data,'' and U means "undefined.'' The "undefined'' tag denotes symbols that the object file references but doesn't declare.

00000034 T cleanup_module
00000000 t gcc2_compiled.
00000000 T init_module
00000034 T master_cleanup_module
00000000 T master_init_module
         U printk_Rsmp_1b7d4074
         U request_module_Rsmp_27e4dc04
morgana% fgrep 'printk' /proc/ksyms
c011b8b0 printk_Rsmp_1b7d4074

Because the checksums added to the symbol names in master.o are derived from the entire prototypes of printk and request_module, the module is compatible with a wide range of kernel versions. If, however, the data structures related to either function get modified, insmod will refuse to load the module because of its incompatibility with the kernel.

Exporting Versioned Symbols

The one thing not covered by the previous discussion is what happens when a module exports symbols to be used by other modules. If we rely on version information to achieve module portability, we'd like to be able to add a CRC code to our own symbols. This subject is slightly trickier than just linking to the kernel, because we need to export the mangled symbol name to other modules; we need a way to build the checksums.

The task of parsing the header files and building the checksums is performed by genksyms, a tool released with the modutils package. This program receives the output of the C preprocessor on its own standard input and prints a new header file on standard output. The output file defines the checksummed version of each symbol exported by the original source file. The output of genksyms is usually saved with a .ver suffix; it is a good idea to stay consistent with this practice.

To show you how symbols are exported, we have created two dummy modules called export.c and import.c. exportexports a simple function called export_function, which is used by the second module, import.c. This function receives two integer arguments and returns their sum -- we are not interested in the function, but rather in the linking process.

The makefile in the misc-modules directory has a rule to build an export.ver file from export.c, so that the checksummed symbol for export_function can be used by the import module:

 
ifdef CONFIG_MODVERSIONS
export.o import.o: export.ver
endif

export.ver: export.c
	$(CC) -I$(INCLUDEDIR) $(CFLAGS) -E -D__GENKSYMS__ $^ | \
		$(GENKSYMS) -k 2.4.0 > $@

These lines demonstrate how to build export.verand add it to the dependencies of both object files, but only if MODVERSIONS is defined. A few lines added to Makefile take care of defining MODVERSIONS if version support is enabled in the kernel, but they are not worth showing here. The -k option must be used to tell genksyms which version of the kernel you are working with. Its purpose is to determine the format of the output file; it need not match the kernel you are using exactly.

One thing that is worth showing, however, is the definition of the GKSMP symbol. As mentioned above, a prefix (-p smp_) is added to every checksum if the kernel is built for SMP systems. The genksymsutility does not add this prefix itself; it must be told explicitly to do so. The following makefile code will cause the prefix to be set appropriately:

 
ifdef CONFIG_SMP
	GENKSYMS += -p smp_
endif

The source file, then, must declare the right preprocessor symbols for every conceivable preprocessor pass: the input to genksyms and the actual compilation, both with version support enabled and with it disabled. Moreover, export.c should be able to autodetect version support in the kernel, as master.c does. The following lines show you how to do this successfully:

 
#include <linux/config.h> /* retrieve the CONFIG_* macros */
#if defined(CONFIG_MODVERSIONS) && !defined(MODVERSIONS)
#   define MODVERSIONS
#endif

/*
 * Include the versioned definitions for both kernel symbols and our
 * symbol, *unless* we are generating checksums (__GENKSYMS__
 * defined) */
#if defined(MODVERSIONS) && !defined(__GENKSYMS__)
#    include <linux/modversions.h>
#    include "export.ver" /* redefine "export_function" to include CRC */
#endif

The code, though hairy, has the advantage of leaving the makefile in a clean state. Passing the correct flags from make, on the other hand, involves writing long command lines for the various cases, which we won't do here.

The simple import module calls export_function by passing the numbers 2 and 2 as arguments; the expected result is therefore 4. The following example shows that import actually links to the versioned symbol of export and calls the function. The versioned symbol appears in /proc/ksyms.

morgana.root# insmod ./export.o
morgana.root# grep export /proc/ksyms
c883605c export_function_Rsmp_888cb211  [export]
morgana.root# insmod ./import.o
import: my mate tells that 2+2 = 4
morgana.root# cat /proc/modules
import                   312   0  (unused)
export                   620   0  [import]

Backward Compatibility

The demand-loading capability was entirely reimplemented in the 2.1 development series. Fortunately, very few modules need to be aware of the change in any way. For completeness, however, we will describe the old implementation here.

In the 2.0 days, demand loading was handled by a separate, user-space daemon process called kerneld. This process connected into the kernel via a special interface and received module load (and unload) requests as they were generated by kernel code. There were numerous disadvantages to this scheme, including the fact that no modules could be loaded until the system initialization process had gotten far enough to start kerneld.

The request_module function, however, remained unchanged, as did all aspects of the modules themselves. It was, however, necessary to include <linux/kerneld.h> instead of <linux/kmod.h>.

Symbol versioning in the 2.0 kernel did not use the smp_ prefix on SMP systems. As a result, insmod would happily load an SMP module into a uniprocessor kernel, or vice versa. The usual result of such a mismatch was extreme chaos.

The ability to run user-mode helper programs and the intermodule communication mechanism did not exist until Linux 2.4.

Quick Reference

This chapter introduced the following kernel symbols.

/etc/modules.conf

This is the configuration file for modprobeand depmod. It is used to configure demand loading and is described in the manpages for the two programs.

#include <linux/kmod.h>

int request_module(const char *name);

This function performs demand loading of modules.

void inter_module_register(const char *string, struct module *module, const void *data);

void inter_module_unregister(const char *);

inter_module_register makes data available to other modules via the inter-module communication system. When the data is no longer to be shared, inter_module_unregister will end that availability.

const void *inter_module_get(const char *string);

const void *inter_module_get_request(const char *string, const char *module);

void inter_module_put(const char *string);

The first two functions look up a string in the intermodule communication system; inter_module_get_requestalso attempts to load the given module if the string is not found. Both increment the usage count of the module that exported the string; inter_module_put should be called to decrement it when the data pointer is no longer needed.

#include <linux/config.h>

CONFIG_MODVERSIONS

This macro is defined only if the current kernel has been compiled to support versioned symbols.

#ifdef MODVERSIONS

#include <linux/modversions.h>

This header, which exists only if CONFIG_MODVERSIONS is valid, contains the versioned names for all the symbols exported by the kernel.

__GENKSYMS__

This macro is defined by make when preprocessing files to be read by genksymsto build new version codes. It is used to conditionally prevent inclusion of <linux/modversions.h> when building new checksums.

int call_usermodehelper(char *path, char *argv[], char *envp[]);

This function runs a user-mode program in the keventd process context.

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