freebsd-dev/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8

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.\" Copyright (c) 1993
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\" without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" From: @(#)sysctl.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
1999-08-28 00:22:10 +00:00
.\" $FreeBSD$
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.\"
.Dd May 28, 2001
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.Dt SYSCTL 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm sysctl
.Nd get or set kernel state
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl beNnox
.Ar name Ns Op = Ns Ar value
.Ar ...
.Nm
.Op Fl beNnox
.Fl a
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.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility retrieves kernel state and allows processes with appropriate
privilege to set kernel state.
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The state to be retrieved or set is described using a
.Dq Management Information Base
.Pq Dq MIB
style name, described as a dotted set of
components.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl A
Equivalent to
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.Fl o a
(for compatibility).
.It Fl a
List all the currently available non-opaque values.
This option is ignored if one or more variable names are specified on
the command line.
.It Fl b
Force the value of the variable(s) to be output in raw, binary format.
No names are printed and no terminating newlines are output.
This is mostly useful with a single variable.
.It Fl e
Separate the name and the value of the variable(s) with `='.
This is useful for producing output which can be fed back to the
.Nm
utility.
This option is ignored if either
.Fl N
or
.Fl n
is specified, or a variable is being set.
.It Fl N
Show only variable names, not their values.
This is particularly useful with shells that offer programmable
completion.
To enable completion of variable names in
.Nm zsh ,
use the following code:
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.Bd -literal -offset indent
listsysctls () { set -A reply $(sysctl -AN ${1%.*}) }
compctl -K listsysctls sysctl
.Ed
.It Fl n
Show only variable values, not their names.
This option is useful for setting shell variables.
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For instance, to save the pagesize in variable
.Va psize ,
use:
.Pp
.Dl "set psize=`sysctl -n hw.pagesize`"
.It Fl o
Show opaque variables (which are normally suppressed).
The format and length are printed, as well as a hex dump of the first
sixteen bytes of the value.
.It Fl X
Equivalent to
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.Fl x a
(for compatibility).
.It Fl x
As
.Fl o ,
but prints a hex dump of the entire value instead of just the first
few bytes.
.El
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.Pp
The information available from
.Nm
consists of integers, strings, and opaques.
.Nm Sysctl
only knows about a couple of opaque types, and will resort to hexdumps
for the rest.
The opaque information is much more useful if retrieved by special
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purpose programs such as
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.Nm ps , systat ,
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and
.Nm netstat .
.Pp
The string and integer information is summarized below.
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For a detailed description of these variable see
.Xr sysctl 3 .
.Pp
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The changeable column indicates whether a process with appropriate
privilege can change the value.
.Bl -column net.inet.ip.forwardingxxxxxx integerxxx
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.It Sy "Name Type Changeable
.It "kern.ostype string no
.It "kern.osrelease string no
.It "kern.osrevision integer no
.It "kern.version string no
.It "kern.maxvnodes integer yes
.It "kern.maxproc integer no
.It "kern.maxprocperuid integer yes
.It "kern.maxfiles integer yes
.It "kern.maxfilesperproc integer yes
.It "kern.argmax integer no
.It "kern.suser_permitted integer yes
.It "kern.securelevel integer raise only
.It "kern.hostname string yes
.It "kern.hostid integer yes
.It "kern.clockrate struct no
.It "kern.posix1version integer no
.It "kern.ngroups integer no
.It "kern.job_control integer no
.It "kern.saved_ids integer no
.It "kern.boottime struct no
.It "kern.domainname string yes
.It "kern.filedelay integer yes
.It "kern.dirdelay integer yes
.It "kern.metadelay integer yes
.It "kern.osreldate string no
.It "kern.bootfile string yes
.It "kern.corefile string yes
.It "kern.logsigexit integer yes
.It "vm.loadavg struct no
.It "hw.machine string no
.It "hw.model string no
.It "hw.ncpu integer no
.It "hw.byteorder integer no
.It "hw.physmem integer no
.It "hw.usermem integer no
.It "hw.pagesize integer no
.It "hw.floatingpoint integer no
.It "hw.machine_arch string no
.It "machdep.console_device dev_t no
.It "machdep.adjkerntz integer yes
.It "machdep.disable_rtc_set integer yes
.It "user.cs_path string no
.It "user.bc_base_max integer no
.It "user.bc_dim_max integer no
.It "user.bc_scale_max integer no
.It "user.bc_string_max integer no
.It "user.coll_weights_max integer no
.It "user.expr_nest_max integer no
.It "user.line_max integer no
.It "user.re_dup_max integer no
.It "user.posix2_version integer no
.It "user.posix2_c_bind integer no
.It "user.posix2_c_dev integer no
.It "user.posix2_char_term integer no
.It "user.posix2_fort_dev integer no
.It "user.posix2_fort_run integer no
.It "user.posix2_localedef integer no
.It "user.posix2_sw_dev integer no
.It "user.posix2_upe integer no
.It "user.stream_max integer no
.It "user.tzname_max integer no
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.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
For example, to retrieve the maximum number of processes allowed
in the system, one would use the following request:
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.Pp
.Dl "sysctl kern.maxproc"
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.Pp
To set the maximum number of processes allowed
per uid to 1000, one would use the following request:
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.Pp
.Dl "sysctl kern.maxprocperuid=1000"
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.Pp
Information about the system clock rate may be obtained with:
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.Pp
.Dl "sysctl kern.clockrate"
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.Pp
Information about the load average history may be obtained with:
.Pp
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.Dl "sysctl vm.loadavg"
.Pp
More variables than these exist, and the best and likely only place
to search for their deeper meaning is undoubtedly the source where
they are defined.
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.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width ".Aq Pa netinet/icmp_var.h" -compact
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.It Aq Pa sys/sysctl.h
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definitions for top level identifiers, second level kernel and hardware
identifiers, and user level identifiers
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.It Aq Pa sys/socket.h
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definitions for second level network identifiers
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.It Aq Pa sys/gmon.h
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definitions for third level profiling identifiers
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.It Aq Pa vm/vm_param.h
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definitions for second level virtual memory identifiers
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.It Aq Pa netinet/in.h
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definitions for third level Internet identifiers and
fourth level IP identifiers
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.It Aq Pa netinet/icmp_var.h
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definitions for fourth level ICMP identifiers
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.It Aq Pa netinet/udp_var.h
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definitions for fourth level UDP identifiers
.El
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
The
.Fl w
option has been deprecated and is silently ignored.
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.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr sysctl 3 ,
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.Xr sysctl.conf 5
.Sh BUGS
.Nm Sysctl
presently exploits an undocumented interface to the kernel
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sysctl facility to traverse the sysctl tree and to retrieve format
and name information.
This correct interface is being thought about for the time being.
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.Sh HISTORY
.Nm Sysctl
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first appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .
.Pp
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In
.Fx 2.2 ,
.Nm
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was significantly remodeled.