linux/Documentation/sysctl
Linus Torvalds e7aa8c2eb1 These are the documentation changes for 4.10.
It's another busy cycle for the docs tree, as the sphinx conversion
 continues.  Highlights include:
 
  - Further work on PDF output, which remains a bit of a pain but should be
    more solid now.
 
  - Five more DocBook template files converted to Sphinx.  Only 27 to go...
    Lots of plain-text files have also been converted and integrated.
 
  - Images in binary formats have been replaced with more source-friendly
    versions.
 
  - Various bits of organizational work, including the renaming of various
    files discussed at the kernel summit.
 
  - New documentation for the device_link mechanism.
 
 ...and, of course, lots of typo fixes and small updates.
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Merge tag 'docs-4.10' of git://git.lwn.net/linux

Pull documentation update from Jonathan Corbet:
 "These are the documentation changes for 4.10.

  It's another busy cycle for the docs tree, as the sphinx conversion
  continues. Highlights include:

   - Further work on PDF output, which remains a bit of a pain but
     should be more solid now.

   - Five more DocBook template files converted to Sphinx. Only 27 to
     go... Lots of plain-text files have also been converted and
     integrated.

   - Images in binary formats have been replaced with more
     source-friendly versions.

   - Various bits of organizational work, including the renaming of
     various files discussed at the kernel summit.

   - New documentation for the device_link mechanism.

  ... and, of course, lots of typo fixes and small updates"

* tag 'docs-4.10' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (193 commits)
  dma-buf: Extract dma-buf.rst
  Update Documentation/00-INDEX
  docs: 00-INDEX: document directories/files with no docs
  docs: 00-INDEX: remove non-existing entries
  docs: 00-INDEX: add missing entries for documentation files/dirs
  docs: 00-INDEX: consolidate process/ and admin-guide/ description
  scripts: add a script to check if Documentation/00-INDEX is sane
  Docs: change sh -> awk in REPORTING-BUGS
  Documentation/core-api/device_link: Add initial documentation
  core-api: remove an unexpected unident
  ppc/idle: Add documentation for powersave=off
  Doc: Correct typo, "Introdution" => "Introduction"
  Documentation/atomic_ops.txt: convert to ReST markup
  Documentation/local_ops.txt: convert to ReST markup
  Documentation/assoc_array.txt: convert to ReST markup
  docs-rst: parse-headers.pl: cleanup the documentation
  docs-rst: fix media cleandocs target
  docs-rst: media/Makefile: reorganize the rules
  docs-rst: media: build SVG from graphviz files
  docs-rst: replace bayer.png by a SVG image
  ...
2016-12-12 21:58:13 -08:00
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
abi.txt
fs.txt mnt: Add a per mount namespace limit on the number of mounts 2016-09-30 12:46:48 -05:00
kernel.txt These are the documentation changes for 4.10. 2016-12-12 21:58:13 -08:00
net.txt bpf: add generic constant blinding for use in jits 2016-05-16 13:49:32 -04:00
README userns; Document per user per user namespace limits. 2016-09-22 12:52:03 -05:00
sunrpc.txt
user.txt userns; Document per user per user namespace limits. 2016-09-22 12:52:03 -05:00
vm.txt Documentation: add watermark_scale_factor to the list of vm systcl file 2016-07-18 08:27:01 -06:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

==============================================================

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

==============================================================

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management
user/		Per user per user namespace limits

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)