Autoloading personality modules under Linux-ABI
2001-July-19
Christoph Hellwig, <hch@caldera.de>

Linux-ABI can automatically load binary format modules (see modules.txt
ofr information on what binary format modules are).  This file explains
how to setup a system to automatically load the binary format modules
on demand.

Automatic module loading is done in Linux using a facility called 'kmod'
which is - unlike the name suggests - _not_ a system daemon, but a kernel-
facility to make userspace upcalls to te module loading program 'modprobe'.

Linux-ABI uses the function request_module that is exported by kmod to
request modules for personalities that are currently not available but
requested by one of the binary fomrat detection heuristics.  For a missing
personality, request_module is called for the module-string

	personality-<personality-number>

To get the right modules loaded you have to alias these string to the
actually wanted modules in /etc/modules.conf.  To do that you have to know
which personality number maps to what module.  Here is a table for the
personalities supported by Linux-ABI:


	  personalities		module
	-----------------------------------
	  1,2,5,7		abi-ibcs
	  3			abi-sco
	  4			abi-wyse
	  13			abi-solaris
	  14			abi-uw7

Below is an example snipplet from modules.conf for such a setup:

------------------- snip --------------------

alias personality-1	abi-ibcs
alias personality-2	abi-ibcs
alias personality-3	abi-sco
alias personality-4	abi-wyse
alias personality-5	abi-ibcs
alias personality-7	abi-ibcs
alias personality-13	abi-solaris
alias personality-14	abi-uw7

------------------- snip --------------------

