Overview
By the end of this article you should be able to answer the following questions:
False – it can only directly interact with the core hardware only. With remaining hardware, it interacts via kernel modules.
$ lsmod
$ find /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel -type f -iname ‘*.o’ -or -iname ‘*.ko’
$ modprobe -v bluetooth
$ modprobe -rv bluetooth
$ modinfo cdrom
$ modprobe -v cdrom autoclose=1
go to the follwing directory:
/lib/modprobe.d
Create a file with a meaningful name and add the following content:
$ cat /lib/modprobe.d/cdrom.conf
options cdrom autoclose=1 lockdoor=0
# then reboot the machine
$ man modprobe.d
sysctl -a | grep cdrom | grep autoclose
The Linux kernel is the heart of the RHEL Operating System. You can use the uname command to find the kernel’s version:
$ uname -r 3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64
In order for the kernel to perform it’s duties, it has to interact with the machines hardware. The kernel has the ability to directly interact with most of the core hardware. However with other hardware, e.g. usb-pen, the kernel interacts with them via “kernel modules”. That’s so to keep the kernel as light weight as possible.
We also have a service called udevd:
$ systemctl status systemd-udevd -l
systemd-udevd.service - udev Kernel Device Manager
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-udevd.service; static)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2015-05-24 14:11:44 BST; 3h 57min ago
Docs: man:systemd-udevd.service(8)
man:udev(7)
Main PID: 552 (systemd-udevd)
CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-udevd.service
└─552 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
May 24 14:11:44 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Started udev Kernel Device Manager.
This service constantly monitors for any new hardware that is added to the machine (e.g. external usb hard drive), and soon as it detects the new hardware, it then notifies the kernel with the details of the new device, and the kernel then loads in the necessary kernel modules so that it can start interacting and working with the new hardware.
You can use the lsmod to view a list of kernel modules that are currently in use:
$ lsmod Module Size Used by xt_CHECKSUM 12549 1 ipt_MASQUERADE 12678 3 nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4 13412 1 ipt_MASQUERADE tun 27183 1 ip6t_rpfilter 12546 1 ip6t_REJECT 12939 2 ipt_REJECT 12541 4 xt_conntrack 12760 8 ebtable_nat 12807 0 ebtable_broute 12731 0 bridge 115385 1 ebtable_broute stp 12976 1 bridge llc 14552 2 stp,bridge ebtable_filter 12827 0 ebtables 30913 3 ebtable_broute,ebtable_nat,ebtable_filter ip6table_nat 12864 1 nf_conntrack_ipv6 18738 5 nf_defrag_ipv6 34651 1 nf_conntrack_ipv6 nf_nat_ipv6 14131 1 ip6table_nat ip6table_mangle 12700 1 ip6table_security 12710 1 ip6table_raw 12683 1 ip6table_filter 12815 1 ip6_tables 27025 5 ip6table_filter,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_security,ip6table_nat,ip6table_raw iptable_nat 12875 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4 14862 5 nf_defrag_ipv4 12729 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4 nf_nat_ipv4 14115 1 iptable_nat nf_nat 26146 3 nf_nat_ipv4,nf_nat_ipv6,nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4 nf_conntrack 105702 7 nf_nat,nf_nat_ipv4,nf_nat_ipv6,xt_conntrack,nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ipv6 iptable_mangle 12695 1 iptable_security 12705 1 iptable_raw 12678 1 iptable_filter 12810 1 ip_tables 27239 5 iptable_security,iptable_filter,iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_raw ppdev 17671 0 snd_intel8x0 38274 3 snd_ac97_codec 130476 1 snd_intel8x0 ac97_bus 12730 1 snd_ac97_codec snd_seq 63074 0 snd_seq_device 14497 1 snd_seq snd_pcm 103996 2 snd_ac97_codec,snd_intel8x0 serio_raw 13462 0 pcspkr 12718 0 snd_timer 29562 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd 75127 12 snd_ac97_codec,snd_intel8x0,snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_seq_device parport_pc 28165 0 parport 42348 2 ppdev,parport_pc video 19263 0 i2c_piix4 22106 0 i2c_core 40325 1 i2c_piix4 soundcore 15047 1 snd nfsd 290215 1 auth_rpcgss 59343 1 nfsd nfs_acl 12837 1 nfsd lockd 93977 1 nfsd uinput 17625 0 sunrpc 295293 7 nfsd,auth_rpcgss,lockd,nfs_acl xfs 915019 3 libcrc32c 12644 1 xfs sr_mod 22416 0 cdrom 42556 1 sr_mod sd_mod 45499 6 crc_t10dif 12714 1 sd_mod crct10dif_common 12595 1 crc_t10dif ata_generic 12910 0 pata_acpi 13038 0 ahci 29870 4 libahci 32009 1 ahci ata_piix 35038 0 e1000 149270 0 libata 218854 5 ahci,pata_acpi,libahci,ata_generic,ata_piix dm_mirror 22135 0 dm_region_hash 20862 1 dm_mirror dm_log 18411 2 dm_region_hash,dm_mirror dm_mod 104038 13 dm_log,dm_mirror
Unfortunately there isn’t a command that lets you view a list of all modules (loaded and unloaded), therefore we resort to using the “find” command instead:
$ find /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel -type f -iname '*.o' -or -iname '*.ko' | wc -l 2182
You can also manually load kernel modules using the modprobe command, for example, let’s say you want to load the blueotooth module, first let’s check that the module is available for loading:
$ find /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel -type f -iname '*.o' -or -iname '*.ko' | grep "bluetooth.ko" /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/toshiba_bluetooth.ko /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/net/bluetooth/bluetooth.ko
Now let’s confirm that it isn’t currently loaded:
$ lsmod | grep "bluetooth"
Now let’s load the module, which is done using the modprobe command:
$ modprobe -v bluetooth insmod /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko insmod /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/net/bluetooth/bluetooth.ko $ lsmod | grep bluetooth bluetooth 372662 0 rfkill 26536 1 bluetooth
Note, I used the (v)erbose to see what’s happening.
Here we can see that that no other modules are dependant on the bluetooth module (indicate by 0) but the bluetooth module is dependant on the rfkill module, which also got loaded behind the scenes. Only one module is dependent on the rfkill (indicated by the 1).
To unload a module, you use the modprobe again but this time using the (r)emove switch:
$ modprobe -rv bluetooth rmmod bluetooth rmmod rfkill $ lsmod | grep bluetooth
As you can see this also unloaded the rfkill module since it got loaded up as part of the bluetootch, and also because only the bluetooth module depended on the rfkill module.
If you try to unload a module that other modules are dependent, then you’ll get an error message like this:
$ modprobe -rv cdrom modprobe: FATAL: Module cdrom is in use.
Now let’s check it’s dependencies, we see that:
$ lsmod | grep cdrom cdrom 42556 1 sr_mod
Here we see that the sr_mod modules depends on the cdrom module, if we take a look at the we see:
$ lsmod | grep sr_mod sr_mod 22416 0 cdrom 42556 1 sr_mod
As you can see, no other modules depends on sr_mod, so we can try unloading the sr_mod module first:
$ modprobe -rv sr_mod rmmod sr_mod rmmod cdrom $ lsmod | grep sr_mod $ lsmod | grep cdrom
Since the cdrom was only being used via sr_mod, it also got unloaded behind the scenes as well.
In reality it is very rare that you will ever need to manually load/unload kernel modules because the udevd service does a really good job doing this for you.
Monitor the udev service’s realtime logs
The main process underneath the udevd service is the udec
You can monitor in real time which modules are being loaded/unloaded using the udevadm command along with the “monitor” option. To do this, I opened up a separate terminal session to run the monitor the output while I ran “modprobe -rv sr_mod” command in my first terminal:
$ udevadm monitor monitor will print the received events for: UDEV - the event which udev sends out after rule processing KERNEL - the kernel uevent KERNEL[70482.463906] remove /devices/virtual/bdi/11:0 (bdi) KERNEL[70482.468373] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/ata2/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sr0 (block) KERNEL[70482.471845] remove /bus/scsi/drivers/sr (drivers) KERNEL[70482.471969] remove /module/sr_mod (module) UDEV [70482.483339] remove /devices/virtual/bdi/11:0 (bdi) UDEV [70482.486603] remove /bus/scsi/drivers/sr (drivers) UDEV [70482.486662] remove /module/sr_mod (module) KERNEL[70482.496314] remove /module/cdrom (module) UDEV [70482.503934] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.1/ata2/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sr0 (block) UDEV [70482.504962] remove /module/cdrom (module)
The above is the output from the udevd service. If I then attached a new device, e.g. usb-pen, then you can use the “udevadm monitor” to see what modules are being loaded in behind the scenes.
Finding kernel module details and adjusting kernel module parameter settings
You can use the modinfo command to get more details about any kernel module, irrespective of whether they are currently loaded or not, for example:
$ modinfo cdrom filename: /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko license: GPL rhelversion: 7.1 srcversion: EB46A7E87598E0DD56A115E depends: intree: Y vermagic: 3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions signer: CentOS Linux kernel signing key sig_key: 34:B5:BC:A2:B7:06:D8:2E:72:A5:BE:3E:E4:09:BE:C7:19:5E:A5:08 sig_hashalgo: sha256 parm: debug:bool parm: autoclose:bool parm: autoeject:bool parm: lockdoor:bool parm: check_media_type:bool parm: mrw_format_restart:bool
You can pass various parameters while loading kernel modules. The modinfo command lists a kernel module’s available parameters which are listed as “parm” entries. For example for the cdrom kernel module, the last 6 lines shows the list of parameters that are available.
Note for boolean parameters, 0=not-enabled and 1=enabled.
Hence we can enable the cdrom’s kernel module’s autoclose feature like this:
$ modprobe -v cdrom autoclosex=1 insmod /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko autoclosex=1 modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'cdrom': Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
Here it failed because I had a small typo, I used “autoclosex” instead of “autoclose”. Now without the typo:
$ modprobe -v cdrom autoclose=1 insmod /lib/modules/3.10.0-229.1.2.el7.x86_64/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko autoclose=1
However if the module is already loaded in then you need to unload it first before loading with the parameter settings.
This is how you set parameters by manually loading the kernel module. However more importantly you will want to automate this during boot time (i.e. make it persistent). To do this you need to create/edit a *.conf file in:
$ ls -l /lib/modprobe.d total 20 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 79 Mar 6 05:17 cxgb3.conf -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 79 Mar 6 05:17 cxgb4.conf -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 382 Mar 5 19:35 dist-alsa.conf -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 884 Mar 6 03:02 dist-blacklist.conf -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 496 Mar 6 05:17 libmlx4.conf
You can find more info about what this directory is used for in the man pages:
$ man 5 modprobe.d
So for the above example, I created the following file:
$ cat /lib/modprobe.d/cdrom.conf options cdrom autoclose=1 lockdoor=0
Note: I also added another option, to give you an idea on how to specify more than one options.
I also named this file “cdrom.conf”, but in actual fact you give it any name you like. Although it’s a good idea to name it after the kernel module.
Also if you include a typo here then the kernel module will fail to load.
Unfortunately there is no definitive way to check what the parameter settings are for a given kernel module that is loaded. One possible way is to check the contents of /sys/module folder. This folder has a folder that’s named after each kernel module that is currently loaded. So if you reload a kernel module then the corresponding folder is deleted and recreated, e.g.:
$ ls -l /sys/module/ | grep cdrom drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 0 May 25 15:29 cdrom $ modprobe -r cdrom $ ls -l /sys/module/ | grep cdrom $ modprobe cdrom $ ls -l /sys/module/ | grep cdrom drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 0 May 25 16:01 cdrom
Each of these modules folder may have contain a “parameters” folder
$ find /sys/module/ -name parameters -type d /sys/module/vt/parameters /sys/module/hid/parameters /sys/module/snd/parameters /sys/module/tpm/parameters . . ...etc
The parameters folder contains info about which what parameters are currently set to. However this info is not provided for all kernel modules, since it is something that the kernel module’s developer chooses whether or not to implement.
In the case of the cdrom kernel module, the parameter folder is unfortunately not something that’s provided. Failing that you could try checking the /var/log/message file. If that also fails then you can try using sysctl command:
$ sysctl -a | grep autoclose dev.cdrom.autoclose = 1
We will cover more about sysctl in the next lesson.