kldxref8
Generate hints for the kernel loader
Usage
kldxref [-Rdv]
[-f
hintsfile]
path ...
kldxref -m
module
Overview
The kldxref utility is used to generate hint files which list modules, their version numbers, and the files that contain them. These hints are used by the kernel loader to determine where to find a particular KLD module.
A separate hint file is generated for each directory listed on the command line that contains modules. If no hint records are generated for a particular directory, no hint file is created, and the preexisting hint file (if there was one in that directory) is removed.
kldxref only processes files that either have no dots in their name like kernel or that end in “.ko” like foo.ko.
The following options are available:
-
-R -
Recurse into subdirectories.
-
-d -
Do not generate a hint file, but print module metadata on standard output.
-
-f hintsfile -
Specify a different name for the hints files than linker.hints.
-
-m module -
Print information about the modules in the file module.
-
-v -
Operate in verbose mode.
Examples
To build hint files for both standard and add-on modules:
kldxref /boot/kernel /boot/modules
To build hint files for all installed kernels:
kldxref -R /boot
Releases
56 releases since FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE; the text changed 37 times.
- 5.0
- 5.1–5.2.1
- 5.3–6.3
- 6.4
- 7.0
- 7.1
- 7.2
- 7.3
- 7.4
- 8.0
- 8.1
- 8.2
- 8.3
- 8.4
- 9.0
- 9.1
- 9.2
- 9.3
- 10.0
- 10.1
- 10.2
- 10.3
- 10.4
- 11.0
- 11.1
- 11.2
- 11.3
- 11.4
- 12.0
- 12.1
- 12.2
- 12.3
- 12.4
- 13.0–13.2
- 13.3–13.5
- 14.0–14.5
- 15.0–15.1
- 16.0
-m since FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27).