initrd-scanmod(1)

General Commands Manual

initrd-scanmod(1)

NAME

initrd-scanmod - searches for kernel modules according to patterns

SYNOPSIS

initrd-scanmod [options] [--] rules-file [rules-file ...]

DESCRIPTION

The utility uses a set of rules to find and show kernel modules. It shows the modules that satisfy all the rules. This utility reads rules for filtering from files. It can filter modules by the following criteria: alias, author, depends, description, filename, firmware, license, name and symbol.

OPTIONS

-k, --set-version=VERSION

use VERSION instead of ‘uname -r‘.

-b, --base-dir=DIR

use DIR as filesystem root for /lib/modules;

-v, --verbose

print a message for each action.

-V, --version

Show version of program and exit.

-h, --help

Show this text and exit.

RULES

The rules are in the format:

<keyword> <regular-expression>

All empty rules or starting with the ‘‘#’’ character are ignored. If the keyword begins with the prefix ‘‘not-’’ then the rule will be inverted.

name

This allows you to filter modules by the kernel module name.

alias

This allows you to search the aliases list of a kernel module. For example:

alias ˆfs-

depends

Modules depend on other modules. This keyword allows you to filter modules based on dependencies. Example:

depends ˆ(.*,)?af_alg(,.*)?$

symbol

Also you can filter by module symbol names. This is a very shaky approach. The symbol names may change in the new kernel version and the filter will stop working. Some stable subsystems don’t change often. Example:

symbol ˆ(nfs_.*|svc_.*)$

symbol ˆregister_virtio_driver

AUTHOR

Written by Alexey Gladkov.

BUGS

Report bugs to the authors.

2026-06-13