KEXTUNLOAD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual KEXTUNLOAD(8)NAMEkextunload — terminate driver I/O Kit driver instances and unload kernel
extensions (kexts)
SYNOPSISkextunload [options] [--] [kext ...]
DESCRIPTION
The kextunload program is used to terminate and unregister I/O Kit
objects associated with a kernel extension (kext) and to unload the code
and personalities for that kext. kextunload must run with superuser
privileges.
If another loaded kext has a dependency on the kext being unloaded, the
unload will fail. You can determine whether a kext has dependents using
the kextstat(8) tool.
kextunload is a formal interface for unloading kexts in the Darwin OS and
in Mac OS X. Software and installers can rely on its presence and invoke
it in order to unload kexts. Note that long options are present as of
Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
The arguments and options are:
kext Unload the loaded kext whose bundle identifier matches the
CFBundleIdentifier of kext. All instances of IOService sub‐
classes defined by the loaded kext and in the IOService plane of
the I/O Registry are terminated; the kext is checked to make
sure no instances of its libkern C++ classes remain; the kext's
C++ static destructores and module stop routine are invoked;
then the kext's executable and IOKitPersonalities are unloaded
from the kernel. Failure at any stage prevents kext unload.
-b identifier, -bundle-id identifier
Unload executable and IOKitPersonalities (as described immedi‐
ately above) for the kext whose CFBundleIdentifier is
identifier.
-c classname, -class classname
Terminate all instances of class classname that are in the
IOService plane of the I/O Registry, if possible, but do not
unload the defining kext or its IOKitPersonalities. New load
requests for devices that were driven by these terminated
instances may result in the same class being instantiated at any
time.
-h, -help
Print a help message describing each option flag and exit with a
success result, regardless of any other options on the command
line.
-m identifier
Same as -b (remains for backward compatibility).
-p, -personalities-only
Terminate services and remove personalities only; do not unload
kexts.
-q, -quiet
Quiet mode; print no informational or error messages.
-v [0-6 | 0x####], -verbose [0-6 | 0x####]
Verbose mode; print information about program operation. Higher
levels of verbosity include all lower levels. By default
kextunload prints only warnings and errors. You can specify a
level from 0-6, or a hexadecimal log specification (as described
in kext_logging(8)). The levels of verbose output are:
0 Print only errors (that is, suppress warnings); see
also -quiet.
1 (or none) Print basic information about program operation.
2 Prints information about unload stages.
3 Prints information about removal of personalities.
4 Prints information about module stop functions and
C++ class destruction.
5 Prints detailed information internal operations
such as bookkeping.
6 Identical to level 5 for kextunload.
Unlike in other kext tools, the -verbose flag in kextunload
applies to all kexts (that is, it turns on hexadecimal bit 0x8
by default). See kext_logging(8) for more information on ver‐
bose logging.
DIAGNOSTICSkextunload exits with a zero status upon success, or prints an error mes‐
sage and exits with a nonzero status upon failure.
BUGS
Many single-letter options are inconsistent in meaning with (or directly
contradictory to) the same letter options in other kext tools.
SEE ALSOkextcache(8), kextd(8), kextload(8), kextstat(8), kext_logging(8)Darwin March 6, 2009 Darwin
