Modules loaded on boot which shouldn't be

Seather

Something is really irritating me,

There are certain kernel modules, that if installed into the system will be loaded on boot without being listed in /etc/modules.autoload/kernel-2.6

2 examples of these are: rtc and ipv6

How do I stop them from being loaded?

electrofreak · l33t Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 713 Location: Ohio, USA

Could coldplug or hotplug be starting them? Could something else be depending on them? If there is something that depends on them then they probably get loaded automatically.

And anyway... whats the big deal with them loading anyway?

Seather · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:16 am Post subject:

Nothing else depends on them and coldplug and hotplug is both not started at boot.

Why don't I want them loaded? Well, would you want KDE and Gnome installed on your desktop box if you use only one of the two? Or worse, neither?

It's taking up memory which should need to be taken up, and, having ipv6 when not being used is a possible security issue.

Principle counts for a bit too!

insertfunkhere · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2004 Posts: 43 Location: Boston, MA

I just switched over to the 2.6.11-cko3 kernel, enabling as modules a couple more things as I did so, and now i'm experiencing the same problem. Short of creating a script to "modprobe -r module" after boot, I don't know how to not have these modules loaded.

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3468 Location: Canada

Same here. I have loaded unasked not only SATA subsytem (onboard SATA is disabled in BIOS), but actually the whole bunch of
SATA drivers for the chips I don't have. Actually, seems all drivers I have compiled modules for.

Same with tapes - it loads all possible tape drivers. IDE and SCSI. And I don't own any.

Module loading really went haywire. Everything and its friends are trying to load them - just look at ls -l /etc/mod*,
plus init scripts, plus hotplug, plus udev/devfs, which, given that there is no autounloading anymore, duplicate
themselves.

Long gone the clarity when init scripts were loading static modules, and a single modules.conf was responsible for automatic loading.