Name

kerneld

Synopsis

kerneld

Description

System administration command. kerneld automatically loads kernel modules when they are needed, thereby reducing kernel memory usage from unused loaded modules and replacing manual loading of modules with modprobe or insmod. If a module has not been used for more than one minute, kerneld automatically removes it.

kerneld comes with the modules-utilities package and is set up during kernel configuration; its functionality is provided by interactions between that package and the kernel. kerneld is aware of most common types of modules. When more than one possible module can be used for a device (such as a network driver), kerneld uses the configuration file /etc/conf.modules, which contains path information and aliases for all loadable modules, to determine the correct module choice.

kerneld can also be used to implement dial-on-demand networking, such as SLIP or PPP connections. The network connection request can be processed by kerneld to load the proper modules and set up the connection to the server.

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