rmmod - simple program to remove a module from the Linux Kernel

rmmod [-f] [-w] [-s] [-v] [modulename]

rmmod is a trivial program to remove a module from the kernel. Most users will want to use modprobe(8) instead, with the -r option.

-v --verbose

Print messages about what the program is doing. Usually rmmod only prints messages if something goes wrong.

-f --force

This option can be extremely dangerous: it has no effect unless CONFIG_MODULE_FORCE_UNLOAD was set when the kernel was compiled. With this option, you can remove modules which are being used, or which are not designed to be removed, or have been marked as unsafe (see lsmod(8)).

-w --wait

Normally, rmmod will refuse to unload modules which are in use. With this option, rmmod will isolate the module, and wait until the module is no longer used. Noone new will be able to use the module, but it's up to you to make sure the current users eventually finish with it. See lsmod(8)) for information on usage counts.

-s --syslog

Send errors to the syslog, instead of standard error.

-V --version

Show version of program, and exit. See below for caveats when run on older kernels.

This version of rmmod is for kernels 2.5.48 and above. If it detects a kernel with support for old-style modules (for which much of the work was done in userspace), it will attempt to run rmmod.modutils in its place, so it is completely transparent to the user.

This manual page Copyright 2002, Rusty Russell, IBM Corporation.

modprobe(8), insmod(8), lsmod(8), rmmod.modutils(8)