Chapter 41. General Parameters and Modules

Chapter 41. General Parameters and Modules

41.1. Kernel Module Utilities
41.2. Persistent Module Loading
41.3. Specifying Module Parameters
41.4. Storage parameters
41.5. Ethernet Parameters
41.5.1. Using Multiple Ethernet Cards
41.5.2. The Channel Bonding Module
41.6. Additional Resources
41.6.1. Installed Documentation
41.6.2. Useful Websites

This chapter is provided to illustrate some of the possible parameters available for common hardware device drivers[10], which under Red Hat Enterprise Linux are called kernel modules. In most cases, the default parameters do work. However, there may be times when extra module parameters are necessary for a device to function properly or to override the module's default parameters for the device.

During installation, Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses a limited subset of device drivers to create a stable installation environment. Although the installation program supports installation on many different types of hardware, some drivers (including those for SCSI adapters and network adapters) are not included in the installation kernel. Rather, they must be loaded as modules by the user at boot time.

Once installation is completed, support exists for a large number of devices through kernel modules.

Important

Red Hat provides a large number of unsupported device drivers in groups of packages called kernel-smp-unsupported-<kernel-version> and kernel-hugemem-unsupported-<kernel-version>. Replace <kernel-version> with the version of the kernel installed on the system. These packages are not installed by the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program, and the modules provided are not supported by Red Hat, Inc.


[10] A driver is software which enables Linux to use a particular hardware device. Without a driver, the kernel cannot communicate with attached devices.


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