History log of /freebsd-current/sbin/sysctl/sysctl.8
Revision Date Author Comments
# 380b7eb3 23-Jan-2024 Igor Ostapenko <pm@igoro.pro>

sysctl.8: fix format typo

Signed-off-by: Igor Ostapenko <pm@igoro.pro>


# 51e16cb8 23-Nov-2023 Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>

sbin: Remove ancient SCCS tags.

Remove ancient SCCS tags from the tree, automated scripting, with two
minor fixup to keep things compiling. All the common forms in the tree
were removed with a perl script.

Sponsored by: Netflix


# 8d7a48d3 17-Aug-2023 Olivier Certner <olce.freebsd@certner.fr>

sysctl(8): Mention more security.bsd knobs; Refer to security(7)

Reviewed by: mhorne, pauamma_gundo.com, emaste
MFC after: 2 weeks
Sponsored by: Kumacom SAS
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D41113


# b2c76c41 16-Aug-2023 Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>

Remove $FreeBSD$: one-line nroff pattern

Remove /^\.\\"\s*\$FreeBSD\$$\n/


# f126d349 24-Dec-2022 Kirk McKusick <mckusick@FreeBSD.org>

Add -F option to sysctl(8) to display sysctl format.

Also add a test to ensure that it is working correctly.

Submitted by: ota_j.email.ne.jp
Reviewed by: mckusick
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D34012


# cd9cdd0e 13-Dec-2022 Ceri Davies <ceri@FreeBSD.org>

sysctl.8: grammar nit


# 0438e9be 30-Jun-2022 Mateusz Piotrowski <0mp@FreeBSD.org>

sysctl.8: Reference sysctl(9)

MFC after: 1 week


# 1dee7c74 20-Mar-2022 Colin Percival <cperciva@FreeBSD.org>

sysctl(8): Mention CTLFLAG_SKIP

`sysctl -a` does not print values with this flag.

Reviewed by: debdrup
MFC after: 2 weeks
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D34615


# 77b793c4 30-Oct-2020 Stefan Eßer <se@FreeBSD.org>

Update man-pages to describe the user.localbase variable added in r367179.

MFC after: 3 days


# 0ad4bfae 22-Aug-2020 Fernando Apesteguía <fernape@FreeBSD.org>

sysctl(8): clarify -n flag

-n omits the name of the variable regardless of the type of information that is
requested. Rephrase to clarify this point.

PR: 242191
Submitted by: stilezy@gmail.com
Approved by: emaste@
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D26149


# c68d0f8b 08-Feb-2019 Guangyuan Yang <ygy@FreeBSD.org>

Remove -R option which was added to sysctl(8) man page per r244106, but it is not implemented.

MFC after: 3 days
Submitted by: Alfonso Siciliano <alfix86@gmail.com>
Reviewed by: 0mp, imp
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D19012


# 8251b8b8 24-Sep-2018 Mateusz Piotrowski <0mp@FreeBSD.org>

sysctl(8): Add a standard exit status section.

Reviewed by: bcr
Approved by: re (gjb), krion (mentor)
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D17147


# 2365fe56 09-Mar-2018 John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>

Permit sysctl(8) to set an array of numeric values for a single node.

Most sysctl nodes only return a single value, but some nodes return an
array of values (e.g. kern.cp_time). sysctl(8) understand how to display
the values of a node that returns multiple values (it prints out each
numeric value separated by spaces). However, until now sysctl(8) has
only been able to set sysctl nodes to a single value. This change
allows sysctl to accept a new value for a numeric sysctl node that contains
multiple values separated by either spaces or commas. sysctl(8) parses
this list into an array of values and passes the array as the "new" value
to sysctl(2).

Reviewed by: rpokala
MFC after: 1 week
Sponsored by: Chelsio Communications
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D14569


# ed007b78 16-Sep-2017 Allan Jude <allanjude@FreeBSD.org>

kern.osreldate is an integer, not a string

PR: 217501
Submitted by: Yavuz Tanriverdi <stemix@gmail.com>
MFC after: 1 week


# fbbd9655 28-Feb-2017 Warner Losh <imp@FreeBSD.org>

Renumber copyright clause 4

Renumber cluase 4 to 3, per what everybody else did when BSD granted
them permission to remove clause 3. My insistance on keeping the same
numbering for legal reasons is too pedantic, so give up on that point.

Submitted by: Jan Schaumann <jschauma@stevens.edu>
Pull Request: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/pull/96


# 8020192d 09-Dec-2015 Marcelo Araujo <araujo@FreeBSD.org>

Add -t option to display field types.

PR: bin/203918
Submitted by: ota <ota@j.email.ne.jp>
Reviewed by: cem
Approved by: bapt (mentor)
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D4451


# 75820005 12-Feb-2015 John-Mark Gurney <jmg@FreeBSD.org>

add support for specifying an initial buffer size when fetching a
sysctl... This is useful for kern.arandom which (without -B) will
happily return 0 bytes, which isn't too useful or random...

fix spelling (thanks igor!) of settable while I'm here...


# b85e9d27 12-Nov-2013 Devin Teske <dteske@FreeBSD.org>

Fix a typo: s/wriable/writable/


# da178c77 13-Dec-2012 Xin LI <delphij@FreeBSD.org>

Teach sysctl(8) about parsing a file (while I'm there also give it
capability of parsing both = and : formats).

Submitted by: hrs (initial version, bugs are mine)
MFC after: 3 months


# 9ecd2e32 10-Dec-2012 Alfred Perlstein <alfred@FreeBSD.org>

Allow sysctl to filter boot and runtime tunables.

Add the following flags to sysctl:
-W - show only writable sysctls
-T - show only tuneable sysctls

This can be used to create a /var/run/sysctl.boot to
compare set tunables versus booted tunables.

Sponsored by: iXsystems


# c2965cd1 26-Mar-2012 Joel Dahl <joel@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc: terminate quoted strings.

Reviewed by: brueffer


# 7e265fae 17-Jan-2011 Matthew D Fleming <mdf@FreeBSD.org>

Fix typo and bump date.


# 5bf6a940 17-Jan-2011 Matthew D Fleming <mdf@FreeBSD.org>

The kernel is not exporting any "T,dev_t" sysctl nodes anymore, so
remove the capability and mention from sysctl(8).


# a7d5f7eb 19-Oct-2010 Jamie Gritton <jamie@FreeBSD.org>

A new jail(8) with a configuration file, to replace the work currently done
by /etc/rc.d/jail.


# fe0506d7 09-Mar-2010 Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@FreeBSD.org>

Create the altix project branch. The altix project will add support
for the SGI Altix 350 to FreeBSD/ia64. The hardware used for porting
is a two-module system, consisting of a base compute module and a
CPU expansion module. SGI's NUMAFlex architecture can be an excellent
platform to test CPU affinity and NUMA-aware features in FreeBSD.


# a83e6639 14-Feb-2010 Gavin Atkinson <gavin@FreeBSD.org>

Merge r203310,203547,203717 from head:

Implement the "-i" option to sysctl(8), to ignore failures while
retrieving individual OIDs. This allows the same list of OIDs to be
passed to sysctl(8) across different systems where particular OIDs may
not exist, and still get as much information as possible from them.

PR: bin/123644
Submitted by: dhw


# 7402a88d 06-Feb-2010 Gavin Atkinson <gavin@FreeBSD.org>

Add the -i option to the synopsis.

Submitted by: dhw
MFC after: 1 week (with r203310)


# 24b2aa32 31-Jan-2010 Gavin Atkinson <gavin@FreeBSD.org>

Implement the "-i" option to sysctl(8), to ignore failures while
retrieving individual OIDs. This allows the same list of OIDs to be
passed to sysctl(8) across different systems where particular OIDs may not
exist, and still get as much information as possible from them.

PR: bin/123644
Submitted by: dhw
Approved by: ed (mentor)
MFC after: 2 weeks


# d7f03759 19-Oct-2008 Ulf Lilleengen <lulf@FreeBSD.org>

- Import the HEAD csup code which is the basis for the cvsmode work.


# 169575e1 28-Nov-2007 Remko Lodder <remko@FreeBSD.org>

Remove mentionings of kern.dumpdev which is no longer available.

PR: docs/113570
Submitted by: lawrance
MFC After: 3 days (where applicable)


# 9f05d312 15-Oct-2007 Alexander Leidinger <netchild@FreeBSD.org>

Backout sensors framework.

Requested by: phk
Discussed on: cvs-all


# 99f6b270 14-Oct-2007 Alexander Leidinger <netchild@FreeBSD.org>

Import OpenBSD's sysctl hardware sensors framework.

This commit includes the following core components:

* sample configuration file for sensorsd
* rc(8) script and glue code for sensorsd(8)
* sysctl(3) doc fixes for CTL_HW tree
* sysctl(3) documentation for hardware sensors
* sysctl(8) documentation for hardware sensors
* support for the sensor structure for sysctl(8)
* rc.conf(5) documentation for starting sensorsd(8)
* sensor_attach(9) et al documentation
* /sys/kern/kern_sensors.c
o sensor_attach(9) API for drivers to register ksensors
o sensor_task_register(9) API for the update task
o sysctl(3) glue code
o hw.sensors shadow tree for sysctl(8) internal magic
* <sys/sensors.h>
* HW_SENSORS definition for <sys/sysctl.h>
* sensors display for systat(1), including documentation
* sensorsd(8) and all applicable documentation

The userland part of the framework is entirely source-code
compatible with OpenBSD 4.1, 4.2 and -current as of today.

All sensor readings can be viewed with `sysctl hw.sensors`,
monitored in semi-realtime with `systat -sensors` and also
logged with `sensorsd`.

Submitted by: Constantine A. Murenin <cnst@FreeBSD.org>
Sponsored by: Google Summer of Code 2007 (GSoC2007/cnst-sensors)
Mentored by: syrinx
Tested by: many
OKed by: kensmith
Obtained from: OpenBSD (parts)


# 046bcd1b 24-Aug-2007 Daniel Gerzo <danger@FreeBSD.org>

document hw.realmem

Submitted by: cnst@ (Constantine A. Murenin)
Sponsored by: Google Summer of Code 2007
Approved by: re@ (bmah)
MFC after: 1 week


# 4e9e907d 18-Nov-2005 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

-mdoc sweep.


# f93d36fd 15-Sep-2005 Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>

Add "-q" argument to sysctl(8), which suppresses a limited set of warnings/
errors generated. In particular, it suppresses "unknown oid" when
attempting to get or set a sysctl not present in the kernel.

MFC after: 1 week


# f0ea72a0 14-Jul-2005 Christian Brueffer <brueffer@FreeBSD.org>

- Remove MLINKS to nonexistant manpages
- Change some section numbers to match reality
- For MLINKS to manpages from ports, mention which port installs them

MFC after: 3 days


# 6087df9e 18-Jan-2005 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

Sort sections.


# 21414470 10-Jan-2005 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

Scheduled mdoc(7) sweep.


# ec3724d9 05-Dec-2004 Hiten Pandya <hmp@FreeBSD.org>

Code for automatic name completion in a tcsh(1) environment.

PR: docs/44435
Submitted by: Slaven Rezic slaven dot rezic at berlin dot de


# 4c723140 09-Apr-2004 Mark Murray <markm@FreeBSD.org>

Remove advertising clause from University of California Regent's license,
per letter dated July 22, 1999.

Approved by: core, imp


# 7434ec74 07-Nov-2003 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Alphabetization braino.

Pointed out by: johan


# 45817aaa 07-Nov-2003 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Add a command-line option to format output for human readability.
Currently, the only effect it has is to print some (but not all) numbers
using thousands separators.


# fe08efe6 08-Sep-2003 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7): Use the new feature of the .In macro.


# 4f898f94 07-Jun-2003 Philippe Charnier <charnier@FreeBSD.org>

.Nm -> .Xr


# ab5e6ef0 17-May-2003 Christian Brueffer <brueffer@FreeBSD.org>

Clarify setting sysctl variables via loader(8) tunables

* s/can not/cannot/

Submitted by: ru (*)
Approved by: re (rwatson)


# 43308797 16-May-2003 Christian Brueffer <brueffer@FreeBSD.org>

Add information about setting sysctl variables via loader(8) and
loader.conf(5)

PR: 38426 (slightly modified)
Submitted by: Phil Pennock <pdp@nl.demon.net>
Approved by: re (bmah)
MFC after: 3 days


# 629e80ef 06-Jul-2002 Philippe Charnier <charnier@FreeBSD.org>

The .Nm utility.


# d1f8bca0 15-Mar-2002 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7) police: tiny fixes.


# 617cc038 12-Mar-2002 Luigi Rizzo <luigi@FreeBSD.org>

Document the existence of machdep.guessed_bootdev, as suggested
by Sheldon.
For a detailed description look at the commit log for sysctl.c
rev.1.42 -- i do not think it is appropriate to put the full
description in this manpage, and the "boot" and "loader" manpages
where this description might go are also missing a description of
a number of similar variables, so i think this it is ok to limit
documentation to this now, and update it later when I (or someone
else) have a chance to revise "boot" and "loader".


# 42277d47 10-Mar-2002 Dima Dorfman <dd@FreeBSD.org>

Document `sysctl variable=/dev/foo' syntax.

PR: 34184
Submitted by: Thomas Quinot <thomas@cuivre.fr.eu.org>


# d0615c64 15-Jan-2002 Andrew R. Reiter <arr@FreeBSD.org>

- Attempt to help declutter kern. sysctl by moving security out from
beneath it.

Reviewed by: rwatson


# 6105f815 15-Dec-2001 Luigi Rizzo <luigi@FreeBSD.org>

Add code to export and print the description associated to sysctl
variables. Use the -d flag in sysctl(8) to see this information.

Possible extensions to sysctl:
+ report variables that do not have a description
+ given a name, report the oid it maps to.

Note to developers: have a look at your code, there are a number of
variables which do not have a description.

Note to developers: do we want this in 4.5 ? It is a very small change
and very useful for documentation purposes.

Suggested by: Orion Hodson


# 1bd0b246 30-Nov-2001 Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>

o Update sysctl.8 to reflect renaming of various security-related
sysctls, and to introduce new ones.

Obtained from: TrustedBSD Project
Sponsored by: DARPA, NAI Labs


# 28dc1d23 31-Oct-2001 Anton Berezin <tobez@FreeBSD.org>

Replace `=' with more correct ``.Ql =''.

Mdoc-policed by: ru


# d0b8aabb 30-Oct-2001 Anton Berezin <tobez@FreeBSD.org>

Implement -e option. It modifies the output produced by sysctl(8) in
such a way that the name and the value of the variable(s) are separated
with `=' instead of the usual `: '. This is useful for producing output
that can be fed back to the sysctl utility (pasted to sysctl.conf, for
example).

Reviewed by: rwatson
Approved by: markm
MFC after: 2 weeks


# 2a6bc064 01-Aug-2001 Yaroslav Tykhiy <ytykhiy@gmail.com>

Document the deprecated `-w' option in the COMPATIBILITY section.


# 7e7cdfa0 30-Jul-2001 Yaroslav Tykhiy <ytykhiy@gmail.com>

Since the ``-w'' sysctl(8) option has been deprecated,
don't mention it in the manpages.


# e8b02a42 13-Jul-2001 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7) police: -xwidth has been fold into -width.


# def778b8 05-Jul-2001 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7) police: fixed formatting.


# 369a22fa 07-Jun-2001 Dima Dorfman <dd@FreeBSD.org>

Remove xref to blackhole(4). sysctl has nothing to do with
blackhole(4), except that blackhole(4) uses sysctl's. This xref
obviously isn't appropriate unless we want to xref all the other man
pages which mention sysctls, which we obviously don't (we may want to
list those sysctls, but that's another story).

PR: 27937
Submitted by: yar


# c4da2cc9 28-May-2001 Dima Dorfman <dd@FreeBSD.org>

Update the document date after DES's updates, move the description of
the -b option below -a to maintain alphabetical order, and add a
missing ".It" before "Fl o".


# 9a2402bc 27-May-2001 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Try to make sysctl options slightly more orthogonal:

- introduce a -o option that displays opaque variables.
- introduce a -x option that displays opaque variables in full.
- deprecate -A in favor of -ao and -X in favor of -ax.
- remove -A and -X from usage() and SYNOPSIS (but not from DESCRIPTION).
- ignore -a if one or more variables were listed on the command line.
- deprecate -w, it is not needed to determine the user's intentions.
- some language and style cleanup in the man page.

This commit should not break any existing scripts.

MFC after: 4 weeks


# d0353b83 01-Feb-2001 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7) police: split punctuation characters + misc fixes.


# 0ef56fd8 14-Jan-2001 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Document the -N option in the usage message and the man page.


# d8aa002e 19-Dec-2000 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

Prepare for mdoc(7)NG.


# 97a00e76 14-Dec-2000 Alexey Zelkin <phantom@FreeBSD.org>

Add missing coma in SEE ALSO section

Reported by: Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com>


# 7c7fb079 20-Nov-2000 Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.org>

mdoc(7) police: use the new features of the Nm macro.


# 2cd4f9e1 27-Jul-2000 David E. O'Brien <obrien@FreeBSD.org>

Add reference to sysctl.conf.


# 733144d9 26-Jul-2000 Sheldon Hearn <sheldonh@FreeBSD.org>

Describe the syncer(4)-related sysctls kern.filedelay, kern.dirdelay
and kern.metadelay, thanks to mckusick's feedback.


# 69a45189 05-Jun-2000 Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>

o Mention kern.suser_permitted

Obtained from: TrustedBSD Project


# b91e5f67 26-Feb-2000 Steve Price <steve@FreeBSD.org>

Use 'following' instead of 'follow' in a couple of places for a slightly
better read.


# 2d730c26 22-Nov-1999 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Belatedly back out rev. 1.20.


# 7f3dea24 27-Aug-1999 Peter Wemm <peter@FreeBSD.org>

$Id$ -> $FreeBSD$


# 5a00da37 17-Aug-1999 Geoff Rehmet <csgr@FreeBSD.org>

Add reference to blackhole(4)


# 81e7454a 09-Jan-1999 Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>

Clean up option handling a little.
Add an option for showing sysctl descriptions instead of their values.


# 1c4d6295 28-Sep-1998 Joseph Koshy <jkoshy@FreeBSD.org>

`kern.maxproc' is not changeable using sysctl(1). Change examples
that show `kern.maxproc' being written.

PR: docs/7978
Submitted by: jlemon@americantv.com


# 62052b46 29-Jul-1998 Joerg Wunsch <joerg@FreeBSD.org>

Document the kern.logsigexit sysctl variable (sort of).

Reminded by: bde


# aa81f3a9 21-Jul-1998 Joerg Wunsch <joerg@FreeBSD.org>

Document sef's recent changes in the corefile naming.
Reviewed by: sef (well, i believe his `Looks good' was a review result :)


# d9b1bc77 19-Oct-1997 Philippe Charnier <charnier@FreeBSD.org>

Use err(3). Change err(-1,... to err(1,...


# d1d9bf7e 29-Aug-1997 KATO Takenori <kato@FreeBSD.org>

Added hw.machine_arch.


# 59fe2c14 02-Aug-1997 Bruce Evans <bde@FreeBSD.org>

Import Lite2's src/usr.sbin, except for timed. All changed files
except one unimportant one have already left the vendor branch.


# 476602a9 22-Feb-1997 Peter Wemm <peter@FreeBSD.org>

Revert $FreeBSD$ to $Id$


# 1130b656 14-Jan-1997 Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>

Make the long-awaited change from $Id$ to $FreeBSD$

This will make a number of things easier in the future, as well as (finally!)
avoiding the Id-smashing problem which has plagued developers for so long.

Boy, I'm glad we're not using sup anymore. This update would have been
insane otherwise.


# 750f8dc9 28-Sep-1996 Bruce Evans <bde@FreeBSD.org>

Removed references to pathconf-related variables that were never handled
by sysctl and never can be in their documented form (kern.name_max would
have to become fs.filesystemname.name_max, etc.).

Added missing references to user.stream_max and user.tzname_max. These
seem to misnamed. <sys/sysconf.h> says that they correspond to POSIX2
names, but the sysconf names don't have POSIX2 or "posix2" like all the
other POSIX2 names.


# 85cf659a 22-Aug-1996 Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>

Use the .Fx macro where appropriate.


# 4a8d0283 30-Jan-1996 Mike Pritchard <mpp@FreeBSD.org>

Fix a bunch of spelling errors in a bunch of man pages.


# 1d86b91c 20-Dec-1995 Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.org>

The rewamped sysctl program that will find all the variables itself.
Also a couple of handy new options.


# e6373c9e 20-Feb-1995 Guido van Rooij <guido@FreeBSD.org>

Implement maxprocperuid and maxfilesperproc. They are tunable
via sysctl(8). The initial value of maxprocperuid is maxproc-1,
that of maxfilesperproc is maxfiles (untill maxfile will disappear)

Now it is at least possible to prohibit one user opening maxfiles

-Guido

Submitted by:
Obtained from:


# 9426bb7c 15-Feb-1995 Garrett Wollman <wollman@FreeBSD.org>

Allow the user access to net.inet.igmp, even though there's nothing
sysctl(8) can interpret there. (Someday there might be.)


# 27e3c1f8 17-Oct-1994 Andrey A. Chernov <ache@FreeBSD.org>

Remove machdep.color_display


# 5a663072 17-Oct-1994 Andrey A. Chernov <ache@FreeBSD.org>

Document new machdep variables, pointed by Rod


# 8e3847b2 23-Sep-1994 Garrett Wollman <wollman@FreeBSD.org>

Document more MIB variables.


# dea673e9 25-May-1994 Rodney W. Grimes <rgrimes@FreeBSD.org>

BSD 4.4 Lite usr.sbin Sources