This directory flattens some of what would be found under $SRC/cmd/mdb in illumos-gate, where the Makefile.* here are from a couple different levels in illumos gate: cmd/mdb, cmd/mdb/intel, cmd/mdb/sparc The subdirectories under here are somewhat like: cmd/mdb/intel/modules/* cmd/mdb/intel/{ia32,amd64} cmd/mdb/sparc/{v7,v9} Didn't want to replicate that whole hierarchy just to build some mdb modules. To add a typical intel mdb/kmdb module, you would create: mymod/Makefile mymod/mymod.c mymod/amd64/Makefile mymod/ia32/Makefile