Hello Kees, Rusty, The current delete_module(2) page is severely out of date (basically, its content corresponds to 2.4 days, and was even pretty thin in covering that). So, I took a shot at revising the page to Linux 2.6+ reality. Would it be possible that you could review it? Thanks, Michael .\" Copyright (C) 1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc. .\" and Copyright (C) 2012 Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@xxxxxxxxx> .\" This file is distributed according to the GNU General Public License. .\" See the file COPYING in the top level source directory for details. .\" .\" 2006-02-09, some reformatting by Luc Van Oostenryck; some .\" reformatting and rewordings by mtk .\" .TH DELETE_MODULE 2 2012-10-09 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual" .SH NAME delete_module \- unload a kernel module .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .BI "int delete_module(const char *" name ", int " flags ); .fi .IR Note : There is no glibc wrapper for this system call; see NOTES. .SH DESCRIPTION .BR delete_module () attempts to remove the unused loadable module entry identified by .IR name . This system call requires privilege. If there are other loaded modules that depend on (i.e., refer to symbols defined in) this module, then the call fails. Otherwise, by default, .BR delete_module () marks a module so that no new references are permitted. If the module's reference count (i.e., the number of processes currently using the module) is nonzero, it then places the caller in an uninterruptible sleep state until all reference count is zero, at which point the call unblocks. When the reference count reaches zero, the module is unloaded. When the module is unloaded, the kernel executes its .I exit function. The .IR flags argument can be used to modify the behavior of the system call. The following values can be ORed in this argument: .TP .B O_TRUNC .\" KMOD_REMOVE_FORCE in kmod library Force unloading of the module, even if the following conditions are true: .RS .IP * 3 The module has no .I exit function. By default, attempting to unload a module that has no .I exit function fails. .IP * The reference count for (i.e., the number of processes currently using) this module is nonzero. See the description of .BR O_NONBLOCK . .RE .IP Using this flag taints the kernel (TAINT_FORCED_RMMOD). .IP .IR "Using this flag is dangerous!" If the kernel was not built with .BR CONFIG_MODULE_FORCE_UNLOAD , this flag is silently ignored. .TP .B O_NONBLOCK .\" KMOD_REMOVE_NOWAIT in kmod library If both .B O_NONBLOCK and .B O_TRUNC are specified in .IR flags (and the kernel was built with .BR CONFIG_MODULE_FORCE_UNLOAD ), then the module is unloaded immediately, regardless of whether it has a nonzero reference count. If .B O_NONBLOCK was specified, but .B O_TRUNC was not, then an error is returned if the module has a nonzero reference count. .SH "RETURN VALUE" On success, zero is returned. On error, \-1 is returned and .I errno is set appropriately. .SH ERRORS .TP .B EBUSY The module is not "live" (i.e., it is still being initialized or is already marked for removal); or, the module has no .I exit function and .B O_TRUNC was not specified in .IR flags . .TP .B EFAULT .I name is outside the program's accessible address space. .TP .B EINVAL .I name was an empty string. .TP .B ENOENT No module by that name exists. .TP .B EPERM The caller was not privileged (did not have the .B CAP_SYS_MODULE capability), or module unloading is disabled (see .IR /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled in .BR proc (5)). .TP .B EWOULDBLOCK Other modules depend on this module; or, .BR O_NONBLOCK was specified in .IR flags , but the reference count of this module is nonzero and .B O_TRUNC was not specified in .IR flags . .SH "CONFORMING TO" .BR delete_module () is Linux-specific. .SH NOTES Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using .BR syscall (2). See the Linux kernel source file .I include/linux/module.h for some useful background information. .SS Linux 2.4 and earlier In Linux 2.4 and earlier, the system call took only one argument: .BI " int delete_module(const char *" name ); If .I name is NULL, all unused modules marked auto-clean are removed. Some further details of differences in the behavior of .BR delete_module () in Linux 2.4 and earlier are .I not currently explained in this manual page. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR create_module (2), .BR init_module (2), .BR query_module (2), .BR rmmod (8) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
