Certain kernel modules sometimes depend on one or more other kernel modules. The /lib/modules/<KERNEL_VERSION>/modules.dep file contains a complete list of kernel module dependencies for the corresponding kernel version.

depmod

The dependency file is generated by the depmod program, included in the kmod package. Many utilities provided by kmod consider module dependencies when performing operations. Therefore, manual dependency-tracking is rarely necessary.

Warning

The code of kernel modules executes in kernel-space in the unrestricted mode. Be cautious about the modules you are loading.

weak-modules

In addition to depmod, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides the weak-modules script, which is a part of the kmod package. The weak-modules script determines the modules that are kABI-compatible with installed kernels. While checking modules kernel compatibility, weak-modules processes modules symbol dependencies from higher to lower release of kernel for which they were built. It processes each module independently of the kernel release.