Default KMODDIR

[olli hauer]

On 2016-05-03 20:16, John Baldwin wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 03, 2016 07:56:04 PM olli hauer wrote:
>> On 2016-05-03 19:36, John Baldwin wrote:
>>> I'd like to change KMODDIR's default from /boot/kernel to /boot/modules.
>>> Kernel builds already set KMODDIR explicitly in sys/conf/kern.pre.mk, so
>>> the only modules affected would be modules built standalone outside of a
>>> kernel build.  There are two cases to consider I think:
>>>
>>> 1) Someone has installed a custom kernel and finds they need module
>>>    'foo' that wasn't in their custom kernel.  They might do:
>>>
>>> # cd /sys/modules/foo
>>> # make all install
>>> # kldload foo
>>>
>>>    For myself, if I need this I find myself instead modifying my kernel
>>>    config to include the module in MODULES_OVERRIDE and then doing a
>>>    'make buildkernel && make reinstallkernel' as this will work after my
>>>    next source upgrade.
>>>
>>>    In this case, foo.ko would now end up in /boot/modules rather than
>>>    /boot/kernel.  Note that if a user just does 'make load' instead of
>>>    'make install' then nothing changes.
>>>
>>> 2) A module lives outside of the tree (or a vendor wishes to ship a
>>>    newer version as a standalone module).  All of these modules (including
>>>    all of the one in ports) currently have to override KMODDIR explicitly
>>>    in the module Makefile.
>>>
>>> It is the 2) case I would like to make more seamless by changing the
>>> default.  This does change the behavior for 1) if someone is doing 
>>> 'make install' rather than 'make load' from a module build directory.
>> ...
>>
>> Not totally sure about, but isn't /boot/modules used by third party drivers like original VMware and others?
>>
>> Will be there any impacts for this third party modules during kernel upgrades, like renaming modules to module.old?
> 
> No, kernel upgrades don't touch /boot/modules at all.  Right now third
> party drivers have to explicitly set KMODDIR.  This would mean they no
> longer have to do that as building a module "standalone" would now DTRT
> out of the box when installing.
> 

Thanks for clarification!

-- 
olli