Manual Pages  — KLDLOAD

kldload – load a file into the kernel

SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION NOTES FILES EXIT STATUS EXAMPLES AUTOMATICALLY LOADING MODULES SEE ALSO HISTORY AUTHORS

kldload [-nqv] file ...

The kldload utility loads file .ko into the kernel using the kernel linker. Note that if multiple modules are specified then an attempt will be made to load them all, even if some fail. The .ko extension name is not mandatory when loading a given module using kldload. It does not hurt to specify it though.

If a bare filename is requested it will only be loaded if it is found within the module path as defined by the sysctl kern.module_path. To load a module from the current directory it must be specified as a full or relative path. The kldload utility will warn if a module is requested as a bare filename and is present in the current directory.

The following options are available:

-n
	Do not try to load module if already loaded.
-v
	Be more verbose.
-q
	Silence any extraneous warnings.

The kernel security level settings may prevent a module from being loaded or unloaded by giving Operation not permitted.

/boot/kernel
	directory containing loadable modules. Modules must have an extension of .ko.

The utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

To load by module name:

> kldload foo

To load by file name within the module path:

> kldload foo.ko

To load by relative path:

> kldload ./foo.ko

To load by full path:

> kldload /boot/kernel/foo.ko

The kldload utility first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0, replacing the lkm interface.

Doug Rabson <Mt dfr@FreeBSD.org>