Latest working kernel version: Earliest failing kernel version: Distribution: Alpine Linux Hardware Environment: Software Environment: Problem Description: During 'make modules_install' depmod is called with the -r option. module-init-tools does nothing with this option and its not mentioned in the manpage. The busybox-1.13.2 version of depmod does not support this option at all. Steps to reproduce: * Install busybox-1.13.2 or later. Make sure depmod is enabled * symlink /sbin/depmod -> /bin/busybox * run make modules_install it will fail on depmod.
Created attachment 20295 [details] linux-makefile-depmod.patch Proposed patch to use depmod without -r option.
Yes, this is a deficiency of busybox implementation of module init tools. The standard module init tools from kernel.org projects area does indeed support the use of -r command line option to depmod. Classically this -r (or --root) command line parameter had meaning to consider all modules from the root of the module tree. Now the modern default of -a parameter if no parameter specified is sufficient, So the current implementations of depmod (in the kernel.org module init tools project) simply ignores the -r command line parameter in order to not break backwards compatibility. Perhaps a just as relevant suggestion would be to have the busybox implementation of depmod extended to also accept (and also not do anything with) the -r parameter. I guess the larger issue for discussion is at what point in time should the depmod utility be updated to not accept -r anymore. Until such time, it is technically not wrong for the kernel make system to do depmod -r
(In reply to comment #2) > Perhaps a just as relevant suggestion would be to have the busybox > implementation of depmod extended to also accept (and also not do anything > with) the -r parameter. My first move was sending a patch to busybox which didn't really want make busybox bigger without any good reason. They are doing a pretty good job keeping their code small - gotta respect them for that. They asked me to bring this to attention to linux dev. > I guess the larger issue for discussion is at what point in time should the > depmod utility be updated to not accept -r anymore. Until such time, it is > technically not wrong for the kernel make system to do depmod -r It's technically not wrong to remove the -r either.
Seems a good candidate . Please submit it (with a signed-off-by line) to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org as per Documentation/SubmittingPatches. You don't need to be a list member to do that.
This is already fixed - see: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=75bccd881a49d2da796ec0852158f957dc023f61