Installing Kernel Modules

5.4.2 Installing Kernel Modules

The kernel Makefile includes the modules_install target for installing the kernel modules. By default, the modules are installed in the /lib/modules directory. Since we are in a cross-development environment, however, we need to instruct the Makefile to install the modules in another directory.

As the kernel modules need to be used with the corresponding kernel image, we will install the modules in a directory with a name similar to that of the kernel image. So in the case of the 2.4.18-rmk5 kernel we are using, we install the modules in the ${PRJROOT}/images/modules-2.4.18-rmk5 directory. The content of this directory will later be copied to the target's root filesystem for use with the corresponding kernel on the target. To install the modules in that directory, we use:

$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux- /
> INSTALL_MOD_PATH=${PRJROOT}/images/modules-2.4.18-rmk5 /
> modules_install

The INSTALL_MOD_PATH variable is prepended to the /lib/modules path, so the modules are therefore installed in the ${PRJROOT}/images/modules-2.4.18-rmk5/lib/modules directory.

Once it is done copying the modules, the kernel tries to build the module dependencies needed for the module utilities during runtime. Since depmod, the utility that builds the module dependencies, is not designed to deal with cross-compiled modules, it will fail.

To build the module dependencies for your modules, you will need to use another module dependency builder provided with the BusyBox package. We will discuss BusyBox at length in Chapter 6. For now, download a copy of the BusyBox archive from http://www.busybox.net/ into your ${PRJROOT}/sysapps directory and extract it there.^[5] From the BusyBox directory, copy the scripts/depmod.pl Perl script into the ${PREFIX}/bin directory.

^[5] Download BusyBox Version 0.60.5 or later.

We can now build the module dependencies for the target:

$ depmod.pl /
> -k ./vmlinux -F ./System.map /
> -b ${PRJROOT}/images/modules-2.4.18-rmk5/lib/modules > /
> ${PRJROOT}/images/modules-2.4.18-rmk5/lib/modules/2.4.18-rmk5/modules.dep

The -k option is used to specify the uncompressed kernel image, the -F option is used to specify the system map, and the -b option is used to specify the base directory containing the modules for which we need to build dependencies. Because the tool's output goes to the standard output, we redirect it to the actual dependency file, which is always called modules.dep.