---
name: "modinfo"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "kmod"
version: "34.3-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/modinfo/8"
---

# modinfo(8)

Show information about a Linux Kernel module

## NAME

modinfo - Show information about a Linux Kernel module

## SYNOPSIS

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

**modinfo** **-V**

**modinfo** **-h**

## 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)](/modprobe/8.md) 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

- **-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

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

## SEE ALSO

[**modprobe**(8)](/modprobe/8.md)

## 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

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)](/git-shortlog/1.md) and [**git-blame**(1)](/git-blame/1.md) 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.