Hi Khanh, They differ basically on modprobe's ability to resolve dependencies (based on a makefile-like file previously created with depmod, tipically /lib/modules/*/modules.dep on RH systems) and load all modules necessary to activate a specific one. insmod OTOH will try to load the specified module *only*, and therefore will fail if dependencies are not resolved. As you might have guessed, modprobe is a wrapper around insmod: it parses the depmod-generated file, learns all inter-dependencies among modules and then call insmod (or rmmod) to actually carry out module loading (or unloading). You can check this with the -n and -v switches: # modprobe -nv ipt_state /sbin/insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack.o /sbin/insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_state.o (ip_state depends on ip_conntrack) Compare it to the same attempt using insmod: # insmod -n ipt_state Using /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ipt_state.o HTH, Andre On Sun, 16 Feb 2003 09:23:23 -0500 Khanh Tran <khanh@slc.edu> wrote: > Here's a follow-up to this train of thought: > > Does someone feel like giving a somewhat detailed explanation of the > difference between using insmod and modprobe to load kernel modules? > This is probably slightly off-topic, but still relevant to loading > ip_tables modules and the performance of the firewall. > > Thanks again... > > Khanh Tran > Network Operations > Sarah Lawrence College -- Andre Oliveira da Costa
