MODINFO(8) modinfo MODINFO(8)

# [NAME](#NAME)

modinfo - Show information about a Linux Kernel module

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**modinfo** \[**-0**] \[**-F** *field*] \[**-k** *kernel*] \[modulename|filename...]

**modinfo** **-V**

**modinfo** **-h**

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

**modinfo** extracts information from the Linux Kernel modules given on the command line. If the module name is not a filename, then the /lib/modules/ *version* directory is searched, as is also done by [**modprobe**(8)](/man/os/kmod/modprobe.8) when loading kernel modules.

**modinfo** by default lists each attribute of the module in form *fieldname* : *value*, for easy reading. The filename is listed the same way (although it's not really an attribute).

This version of **modinfo** can understand modules of any Linux Kernel architecture.

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

**-V**, **--version**

Print the **modinfo** version.

**-F** *field*, **--field**=*field*

Only print this *field* value, one per line. This is most useful for scripts. Field names are case-insensitive. Common fields (which may not be in every module) include author, description, license, parm, depends, and alias. There are often multiple parm, alias and depends fields. The special *field* filename lists the filename of the module.

**-b** *basedir*, **--basedir**=*basedir*

Root directory for modules, / by default.

**-k** *kernel*

Provide information about a kernel other than the running one. This is particularly useful for distributions needing to extract information from a newly installed (but not yet running) set of kernel modules. For example, you wish to find which firmware files are needed by various modules in a new kernel for which you must make an initrd/initramfs image prior to booting.

**-0**, **--null**

Use the ASCII zero character to separate *field* values, instead of a new line. This is useful for scripts, since a new line can theoretically appear inside a *field*.

**-a** **--author**, **-d** **--description**, **-l** **--license**, **-p** **--parameters**, **-n** **--filename**

These are shortcuts for the **--field** flag's author, description, license, parm and filename arguments, to ease the transition from the old modutils **modinfo**.

**-h**, **--help**

Print the help message and exit.

# [COPYRIGHT](#COPYRIGHT)

This manual page originally Copyright 2003, Rusty Russell, IBM Corporation.

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**modprobe**(8)](/man/os/kmod/modprobe.8)

# [BUGS](#BUGS)

Please direct any bug reports to kmod's issue tracker at https://github.com/kmod-project/kmod/issues/ alongside with version used, steps to reproduce the problem and the expected outcome.

# [AUTHORS](#AUTHORS)

Numerous contributions have come from the linux-modules mailing list <linux-modules@vger.kernel.org> and Github. If you have a clone of kmod.git itself, the output of [**git-shortlog**(1)](/man/os/kmod/git-shortlog.1) and [**git-blame**(1)](/man/os/kmod/git-blame.1) can show you the authors for specific parts of the project.

**Lucas De Marchi** <lucas.de.marchi@gmail.com> is the current maintainer of the project.

2026-09-24 kmod

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Document: modinfo(8) from kmod 34.2-r50 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git