moduleinittools

Module-init-tools is a set of user-space utilities used to manage Linux kernel modules. It provides tools to load and unload modules, resolve dependencies, and update the module dependency database. The package typically includes modprobe, insmod, depmod, and rmmod. Insmod directly inserts a module image into the running kernel, while modprobe handles automatic dependency resolution and applies configuration rules found in /etc/modprobe.d and /lib/modprobe.d. Depmod scans /lib/modules/$(uname -r) to create the modules.dep and related files that modprobe consults when loading modules.

History and naming: The toolset emerged as a successor to the older modutils and became standard in many distributions around the 2.6 kernel era. It is often referred to in packaging as module-init-tools, in contrast to later replacements that used the kmod package name. In modern distributions, the kmod utilities provide the same interfaces and are generally preferred, with module-init-tools retained only for compatibility or transitional purposes.

Current status: Today most Linux distributions ship the kmod utilities as the default user-space interface for kernel-module management. The functions—loading, unloading, and dependency-aware loading—remain the same, and configuration continues to be controlled via modprobe.d and the modules directory under /lib/modules. Administrators may still encounter module-init-tools in older systems or as a compatibility package during upgrades.