Loading modules in RHEL 3.0 and prior Linux versions

In RHEL 3.0 when you install a new module you may be tempted to put them in the file modules.conf. This may not work, because the modules are not in the initrd boot image.

The solution is to create a new file called /etc/rc.modules which loads the modules, this file do not exist by default, but if you see the file /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit there you are going to see that it checks for the existence of the file, and if it exists, it executes it:

# Load modules (for backward compatibility with VARs)
if [ -f /etc/rc.modules ]; then
/etc/rc.modules
fi

This is the procedure to create the file:

echo "modprobe qla2300" >> /etc/rc.modules
echo "modprobe qla2300_conf" >> /etc/rc.modules
chmod 700 /etc/rc.modules