Linux boot: Can I prevent the loading of a module using a boot parameter?

Question

I know that I can blacklist a module in /etc/modprobe.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, but I have a nasty module which loads before the filesystems are mounted (except /boot of course), so I assume, /etc will not yet be read by then.

Can I prevent a module from loading using a kernel boot parameter?
(I'm using GRUB)

Or are there other ways to do this?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Modules that load that early in the boot sequence are built into the initramfs; it seems likely that you can run update-initramfs -c -k your_kernel_version to ensure that the blacklisted module isn't loaded in that initramfs image.

Answer 2

This Ubuntu site has a nice breakdown of options:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions#Common%20Boot%20Options

While there aren't any ways to tell the kernel to not load a module at boot time, you can get in the way later on down the road. Take a look at the break= optionss, that change initrd behavior. If you don't know the exact module, you can perhaps use these to further isolate it.