How to install cross-compiled linux modules to ARM board

Question

I know how to corss-compile Linux kernel and modules on an x86 host for an ARM board.

However, I'm wondering if I can install the corss-compiled linux modules onto the ARM board?

I don't want to cherry-pick each module and copy it to the board. I'm wondering if there is some command, like make modules_install in x86 that can install the cross-compiled linux modules into the target ARM board?

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

I know I'm a few years late, but as I was just wondering myself if an easy built-in solution would exist for this, I think a solution may still be interesting.

I know 2 possibilities to do it:

Use a temporary folder

As 0andriy suggested, create a temporary folder, install modules in it, then copy to its real destination. For the copy, we have to do a trick to prevent symlink from being copied as full folder content:

mkdir /tmp/dist
make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/tmp/dist/
cd /tmp/dist
tar cfp - * | ssh root@distant.board '(cd / && tar xfp - )'

Note: if you did not run make modules_install as root, you will have to chown -R root:root /tmp/dist before the copy.

Use sshfs

Use sshfs to mount distant board locally.

If you don't have sshfs, install it first. If on Debian or derivative:

apt-get install sshfs

Then, mount the distant board on a local folder:

mkdir /mnt/dist
sshfs root@distant.board:/ /mnt/dist

There you are. You can now access the distant file system in /mnt/dist. So to install modules:

make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/mnt/dist/

When finished working on your board, unmount the folder:

umount /mnt/dist